


For the Things We Lost in the Undergrowth

by seabiscuit



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/F, Golf Carts, I love that they give each other a hard time, Kara's a nerd, Lena is a woo girl with a minor cocaine problem, bed sharing, mlm/wlw solidarity, oh boy are they roommates, thats it, thats the story, they're roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-01-16 06:07:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 47,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12336990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seabiscuit/pseuds/seabiscuit
Summary: All Kara Danvers wants to do is go to college, solve the crime, get the girl, and secure her beat on the campus newspaper. Unfortunately for her, it doesn't all happen in that order.





	1. one

The first movie Kara Danvers ever saw was a silent one. Of course, at that time her name was Kara Zellman, and she was much different than the woman she’d eventually grow up to be. Her mother takes her to an art-house theater to see a film where a woman dances next to saturn and a bullet lands on the face of the moon. It plays out in front of her like a somebody else’s fever dream. Her mother loves it, and she’s delighted at her mother’s love, as most 6 year old girls are, and after she has a chocolate milkshake so cold it makes her head hurt.

For a long time after that, Kara sometimes feels like her life is a movie that she’s watching from outside her body. Here is her childhood bedroom, made of custom oak furniture and a mural painted on a far wall. Here is her mother lifting her above her head as a baby, her squeals of delight, her father cooking a grilled cheese in the kitchen, thinking about what they’ll watch on TV that night. The camera zooms in on his face. He looks a little old for his age, but calm and happy. The audience knows from his content smile that he loves his wife and daughter.

Her tent, her bedroom at the group home, the couch at Clark’s apartment. He puts her to bed on sheets with Ariel from The Little Mermaid although she’s 14 years old and kisses her forehead. She’s too big for that kind of thing, but she lets it happen all the same. He turns off all the lights in the room and although she needs a nightlight, has needed one for the last year and a half, she doesn’t say anything. This time, instead of laying awake until morning, she’s able to follow him through the camera from the living room to the hallway to his own bedroom. The shot is of the back of his head, his sturdy shoulders, the broad slope of his body. He sits on his bed for a long time, hands folded on his knees, looking up at his ceiling fan.

Kara’s movie has no words, but she’s sure the audience will understand what it all means, maybe even better than herself. They’ll see Eliza’s face, Alex’s short, dirty nails, her bedroom, her final bedroom, with it’s too-big bed and old wood floors. It’s the kind of movie shot in long, languid scenes; the camera will linger over the fury-red, mottled skin of her forearm, over Alex’s stomach as she runs screaming into the ocean with Vicky Donahue, over Jeremiah’s casket, an extension of the audience’s eyes, their hands. When she and Alex hug, they’ll sigh indulgently, when she leaves for her first semester of college, they’ll press tissues to their damp eyes.

“You okay, Kara?” Startled out of her reverie, Kara jerks her head up and off the glass of the passenger side window. She can tell that they’ve gone from California to Oregon by the change in scenery; the trees are denser, more foreboding looking. Alex hasn’t taken her eyes of the road, which is for the best. It’s long and empty ahead.

“I’m fine.” Kara stretches as if she’s just woken up from a long sleep. Alex’s eyebrows twitch together, then relax.

“You’re usually chattier on our car trips. What’s on your mind?” Kara is silent. “Are you going to make me guess?” She presses her forehead back onto the window glass. “Okay, uh. You’re worried about the paper.”

“No. I mean, sort of. I really want to impress Professor Grant.”

“I wouldn’t stress about it too much—you said she liked your stuff when you took her class last semester. And, I mean, you’re awesome. Remember when we were kids and you wrote all those stories for the cul-de-sac paper and circulated it around the neighbors?”

“We weren’t kids, I was 16. And I did it because I didn’t have any friends to hang out with. And this is obviously different—do you know how many freshmen have a chance to get their own beat on the campus paper?”

“I’m guessing not too many.”

“Exactly. If I can impress her with a good pitch, I’ll be set. Even if it is only for crime. But I have that job with campus safety now, so I can like—chase down leads. And stuff.” She demonstrates this by making punching motions with her hands and then lifting her knee and banging it accidentally  on the dashboard.

“There’s my Kara.” Alex takes her eyes of the road for one moment to flash her with a lopsided grin. Kara finds herself grinning back, leaning heavily into the nudge Alex gives her. They’re close to campus now, only about a mile away, maybe more. “What about your new roommate situation? Pretty crazy that Connie is transferring so quickly.”

“I mean, okay, yeah. I’m worried that I don’t know who I’m going to be living with this semester. Connie was a little funny but she was quiet and didn’t say anything about my arm.” She waves her right forearm in front of her face. There’s a small patch of scarred skin peeking out from the sleeve of her sweater on her thumb. “But, y’know, also yay that she got into Yale. It just sucks that I’m going to have to start changing in the bathroom all the time again.”

“Well, she was always kinda timid. Maybe your roommate will help you, I don’t know--get out of your shell a little bit.”

“Doubt it.” Kara says. “You know, this conversation has made me realize that I’m really just...nervous about everything, pretty much.”

“That’s the spirit.”

“But you know what? Actually, I think this is going to be my semester. I’ve got a cool new job—“

“I wouldn’t call picking up drunk kids in a golf cart cool, but yeah, okay.”

“—I’m top of your class in my major, I have Winn and James.”  Alex pulls smoothly into the parking lot outside of Kara’s dorm building, a massive stone-faced thing. “Things are getting a little better, right?” Alex turns to look at her once the car is stopped, hands still on the steering wheel. She smiles, but it’s waning—Kara wonders if she’s trying to convince herself of this as much as she’s been trying to convince Kara over winter break.

“Right.” She says, corners of her mouth upturned.

Kara twists to snag her duffel from the back seat and wretches the door open, stepping out into the crisp mid-January air. The sky is grey and overcast, a common feature of winter in the Pacific Northwest. It’s still a few days until classes officially begin and the campus is eerily stagnant. “Look, Kara,” Alex begins as she comes up to stand beside her. “I worry about you, kid. I want you to focus a little on having fun this semester.”

“Yeah,” Kara replies faintly, giving Alex a half-smile. “Sure.”

“Maybe try going to a party or two. Experiment with drugs.”

“Mmhm.”

“Take advantage of your new job and your big sister living a train ride away to supply your dorm hall with alcohol.”

“Okay, Alex.”

“Seriously, Kara.” Alex places a hand on her shoulder and turns her to meet her gaze. “I don’t want you to let everything that’s happened ruin this moment in your life. You deserve to relax a little.”

“I know.”

Alex exits with a brief hug and a murmured ‘you know where to find me’ before she hops back into her car and cruises out of the parking lot, onto the road, and out of sight. Kara huffs out a breath that condenses in the air in front of her, slings the duffel over her shoulder, and tromps inside the back entrance of her dorm hall.

The hallway is uncharacteristically quiet. On a normal weekday, it would be buzzing with young, virile coeds getting into no good, but while it’s still the holiday break their RA won’t even be there until the next day. It feels liminal, almost otherworldly, like a grocery store after hours or waking up from a nap when the light outside has changed from day to night. Once she closes in on her room, she can tell that the only other person in McPhearson hall is apparently her new roommate. There’s a light on under the door, and when she enters Connie’s side of the space is completely changed. The double bed has different sheets, there’s different posters on the wall, and curtains draping the window seat between the two beds. Most glaringly, there’s frustrated, muffled female shouting coming from the bathroom. Whoever her new roommate is, she seems to already be present.

“Hello?” Kara calls out timidly, dropping her duffel on the floor near her bed. There’s a distinct _bang_ in the bathroom, followed by the sound of somebody shuffling around. She clearly hears the words _hold on, mom._ Then, the door opens and a woman steps out, shaky. She has dark hair pinned up in a messy bun, mascara smudged on her cheeks, a phone in one hand with the other covering the receiver. By Kara’s estimation she’s a few inches shorter than her barefoot, wearing black high-waisted skinny jeans and a crop top with a large, loose knit cardigan engulfing the rest of her slight frame.

“Oh my god,” She says, her voice stuffy and wet. She presses her phone back to her face, says “Mom, I have to call you back--no--no-- _goodbye, Lillian.”_ She disappears into the bathroom again, blows her nose. This time the door is left a little ajar and Kara sees her looking at herself intently in the mirror and wiping at her smudged mascara. She averts her eyes.

When she steps back out, she’s looking a little more human, although her eyes are still rimmed red and her face is sort of puffy in that way that happens after you’ve just been crying for a long time. “I’m sorry about that.” She apologizes. “My mom just caught me...well, she’s being unreasonable about something.”

“I totally get it.” Kara responds for no real reason. She doesn’t totally get it and can’t really say she’s ever been in a similar situation. But the woman offers her a small smile and she knows it was probably the right thing to say.

“You must be Kara, right, my new roommate?” She’s digging around next to her desk now, pulling out a pair of shoes and a purse. “I’m Lena.” She looks up to flash Kara with a winning, albeit vacant smile. “And I know this is kind of rude, but I actually have to run—I’ve made plans with some friends tonight, and—“

“It’s not rude at all, go ahead.” Kara waves her off and Lena smiles again, more easily this time. There’s still smudges of mascara on her cheeks, faint ones, aping the outline of tears. Lena flashes her a relieved look as she passes by her and to the door of their shared room. “Thanks, Kara. See you later.”

Kara stands in the stillness of the room for a moment, duffel bag still on her shoulder. She’s aware of the many layers of depopulation outside of her space; nobody in the hall around her, and very few people on campus outside of that. She, Winn and James already have plans for the next day so there’s no excuse to text them. She thinks about reaching out to Alex and maybe spending the night at her apartment— it’s not far, after all, and she knows Alex will turn around from wherever she is to come get her. But she doesn’t want to seem like a baby who can’t spend one night by herself in a familiar but still strange room.

She wishes all at once that Lena hadn’t left, that she’d stayed in the room with her, even if they had eventually just devolved into silence. As she thinks it she crawls into her bed, finds a stupid show on Hulu to watch and tries to turn off the non-essential functions of her brain. She reminds herself of what Alex and Eliza and Dr. Newbold have told her about the normality of inexplicable sadness, but rationalizing it is even less help now that usual. Kara still lays awake in bed until predawn, resting on her arm, listening to the ceiling fan drone on above her.

///

“Wait, wait, wait, go back to the part where your new roommate is _Lena Luthor.”_ Winn is looking up at her in disbelief, hands gripping the bar of the weight above him. He’s got sweatbands on both wrists and his forehead. It’s probably unnecessary for pressing 40 pounds, but he’d insisted on it. Above him, Kara rolls her eyes. “‘Cause I’d like to hear that part again.”

“I told you everything I know.” Kara insists. She’s wearing a long-sleeved workout shirt and shorts and has both hands on the bar of Winn’s weights, ready to spot. “She’s my new roommate, and last night she had a nasty fight with her mom on the phone. Haven’t spoke to her since. Are you going to lift this or what, Winn?”

“I’m mentally prepping Kara, give me space. We can’t all be built like Grecian Gods like _some_ present who will remain unnamed.” He glances pointedly at her, and then to James, positioned on a bench near them doing bicep curls on his left arm. “And while I continue to prepare to lift this...this...mountain, I will express again my disbelief that you are _roommates_ with Lena _Luthor.”_

 _“_ I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware she was a celebrity.”

“Dude, Lena somehow manages to be at like, every party on campus, eye makeup on point, crop top on point, and she wears sunglasses inside _and_ at night. I don’t know how she pulls it off, but she does. Last semester, James was on a flip cup team with her and after they won they got a $25 gift card to Chili’s and Lena kissed him full on the mouth.”

James looks up, nodding. “It was awesome.”

“My point being,” Winn ducks out from under the weight and swings around so he’s sitting on the bench, baggy grey t-shirt hanging off his body loosely. Despite not having lifted anything, there’s a glossy sheen of sweat covering his forehead. Kara wrinkles her nose. “That Lena Luthor is like a campus unicorn. And now she’s your roommate. Come sit down with me, Ms. Danvers.” He pats the spot next to him on the bench and, though she rolls her eyes good-naturedly, she joins him. He has his phone out and is pulling up Instagram, selecting username _lena_luhorss._

Winn selects the first photo on her feed and enlarges it. Kara recognizes Lena in the middle, smiling wide with her nose crinkled and her eyes closed, holding a mimosa; a far cry from the woman with mascara trails down her cheeks last night. There’s two women flanking her, one much taller with dark red hair and a face full of freckles, and another with a darker complexion and brown hair pulled into a top bun. “Those are her two best friends,” Winn explains. He points to the red headed one. “That’s Albie Feemster, and the other one is Maeve Davies. They both rushed Delta Chi and got in this semester, but they all used to live in a suite together. That’s probably why she moved in with you. And this,” He clicks away from the photograph and finds another in the same row, this time of Lena relaxing in the arms of a dark-haired man with a beard. He’s sheepish looking and handsome and wearing a roguishly unbuttoned white shirt and Chubbies. “Is her boyfriend Jack Spheer. Rumor has it they’ve been dating since the 5th grade. He’s the head of philanthropy at Pi Lam.”

“Wow.” Kara breathes out. “You still have to do 20 bench presses, though.”

“Kara!” Winn whines, slamming his phone down on his thigh. “Not fair!”

“I don’t make the rules.” She resumes her spotting position. “Ready? We’re going from 1.”

///

There’s a notification on her calendar for mid February telling her that her pitch is due. She eyes it wearily and it eyes her right back—true that it’s still a month away, but Kara is starting from scratch. The most recent interesting crime was a bear swimming in the cloisters fountain and being chased out by a janitor, and that was back in ‘86. Small, rural colleges just don’t lend themselves as naturally to nogoodnicks as some others might. She regards the screen for a second longer before letting her mind drift.

Although she wouldn’t admit it out loud to anybody, last night before she’d gone to bed she’d gone to Lena’s Instagram and looked at her story. There were three pictures, all of them seemingly taken in somebody’s basement, and one Boomerang of Lena doing a keg stand aided by her boyfriend. She considers looking at them again this morning, but thinks better of it. It’s a weird impulse, and although she’s no stranger to weird impulses, she’s able to resist this one well enough.

With Lena on her mind, she does a little research into campus Greek life. There’s nothing notable beyond the general shadiness that usually comes with fraternities and sororities—a sexual assault hearing there, a medical amnesty request there. She finds Jack Spheer’s profile on Pi Lam’s student affairs page and studies his photo for a long time. He’s certainly handsome in a kind of Byronic way—and so is Lena, she supposes. They’re probably a good fit for one another.

The rest of the day passes in a quiet blur. She goes to the gym again, lifts weights, delights in the stretch and pull she feels in her muscles and the mindless, rapid repetition of it. But her heart ultimately isn’t in it and she leaves early. She’s in bed by 9 PM in preparation for her early morning, a few vague pitches outlined in her google docs and the throb of her sore muscles grounding her firmly in reality. Dressed in a tank top and joggers, she folds herself into her comforter and rests her head on her scarred arm. Lena still isn’t back. Kara tries not to think too much about it.

///

When she finally forces her body to fall asleep, Kara has a very familiar dream.

She wakes up in a tent, surrounded on all sides by a dark sky without stars. She’s wrapped in a cocoon of blankets and there’s an oppressive heat closing in on her. She can’t see anything, but she can smell smoke and sulfur and she can hear their screams in the distance, calling her name, they’re _always_ calling her name--

Unlike in the past, this time when she sits up in her bed and screams, somebody else screams back. When her eyes open in the real world, when she blinks back the tears, she sees a ghost that’s not a ghost backlit by the hallway light of her dorm. Her _dorm._ Of course she’s in her room, which means the woman in the doorway must be--

“Kara?” Lena’s voice is a slurred, tentative whisper. “Are you okay?”

“I’m--” Her sentence is cut off by her laboured breathing. She tries to dig into the back of her mind for the breathing exercises Dr. Newbold had taught her but comes up short, of course they’re never there when she needs them. “Can I have a glass of water?”

Lena doesn’t respond, but she grabs something off of her dresser and shuffles quickly into the bathroom. Kara sees the light go on, squints against it, and listens to the tap run. Lena returns to her bedside, and Kara realizes belatedly that she’s sweating, like, a lot, but her current panic overrides her embarrassment for the time being. She takes the cup, which she registers is the plastic kind you get from buying a $12 daiquiri at a novelty bar, and drinks the water down thirstily. Lena remains next to her the whole time, and Kara can feel her knuckles brushing against her thigh from where she’s gripping the bed.

She’s finished the whole cup of water and still wants more, but the embarrassment about being a sweaty mess is starting to catch up with her. Her sheets are soaked, but her breathing at least has evened out for her to say: “Thank you. For the water. And sorry about all of the screaming.”

“Don’t mention it.” Kara tries to focus on Lena’s face in the dark but can’t really see anything. “I kind of have to puke now, so.”

“Okay! Yeah, go ahead.” Lena shuffles off to the bathroom one more time, closing the door behind her. Kara can still see a sliver of light coming out from underneath, and shortly after she hears the wretched sound of vomiting, like somebody throwing a gallon of water into a plastic bag. She winces. It definitely sounds like a two day bender coming back up. It happens two, then three more times, and then there’s a 10 minute stretch of silence. Kara is still awake, still trying to bring her heart rate down, and when things settle she swings her legs out of bed and snags the cup Lena left at her bedside. She also takes a knit throw from the base of her bed.

Inside the bathroom, Lena is slumped over the toilet which is still, yuck, full of puke. Kara flushes it down, fills the cup with water, watches Lena’s back to make sure she’s still breathing, and then places the throw blanket around her shoulders. The commotion causes Lena to stir and look up. Kara’s face is probably still a mess and she definitely has sweat stains on the pits of her tank top, but to be fair Lena has a smudge of dried vomit on her upper lip and damp flyaway hairs sticking to her forehead and temples. Kara watches as Lena’s gaze falls from her face to her chest finally down to her forearm and the piebald, discolored skin there. She moves it behind her back quickly.

“I’m sorry for how you’re going to feel tomorrow morning.”

“Me too.” Lena grumbles, then lies down on the floor. She doesn’t say goodnight.

The next morning, Kara steps into the bathroom before her 8 AM and is surprised to find Lena still hugging the toilet, albeit looking more alive than she did the previous evening. She’s half sitting up, hair a messy halo around her face, and is taking a noisy drink out of the plastic cup of water. The blanket is draped over her shoulders like a cape. She regards Kara wearily but with no alarm evident in her features.

“What are you doing up?” It comes out in a gravelly, sleep-thick voice. “Don’t tell me you registered for a Monday 8 AM.”

Kara doesn’t say anything, figuring that her full outfit and the Jansport she has slung over one shoulder is probably giving her away well enough. She blinks back owlishly.

“Geeze.” Lena mutters, setting the cup back on the tank. She moves slowly and Kara watches in bewilderment as she crawls on her hands and knees out of the bathroom and into her bed, covering the lower half of her body with her duvet and her head with Kara’s throw blanket. “Thanks for the water, and don’t turn on any lights if you come back before noon.”

Kara beats a hasty retreat out of the room, shutting the door softly behind her. The dorm hall is quiet at this time of morning, as it has been all week. In the stillness of it, she’s all wrapped up in looking forward to grabbing a cup of coffee from Noonan’s before heading to her first class when she rounds the corner and bumps into--

“Dan!” She says in quiet surprise. “Hi!”

Dan Maplethorpe-Armstrong, noted and less-than-esteemed RA of her dorm, is standing in front of her putting the finishing touches on a welcome sign plastered near the entrance of the hall. He’s wearing a Red Hot Chili Peppers t-shirt (typical), and a smarmy smile ( _so_ typical). Kara resists the knee-jerk grimace that usually comes along with seeing him unexpectedly.

“Oh, hey, Keith.” He pauses in the act of gluing the _E_ on _Welcome._ “Headed to Noonan’s?”

“Dan, my name is Kara. Keith is a boy’s name. We talked about this when you put Kevin on my name tag last semester.” She adjusts the strap of her backpack as he bobs his head in a pseudo-casual nod.

“Sure, sure.” Dan resumes adding the next letter to the sign before stopping again and scratching his head, turning to look at Kara. “Wait. Are you sure you live on this hall?”

“ _Yes,_ Dan, I’m sure. I live on this hall and you’re my RA.”

He turns to her then, scanning her body with a contemplative look on his face. “Oh shit, no, you’re right, you’re that girl with the funny arm who wouldn’t participate in Two Truths and a Lie during Welcome Week.”

Kara resolutely stares at her feet. She kicks at a loose thread in the old carpet with her toe, still fiddling with the strap of her backpack. “Yup, that’s me.”

“Hey, you’re coming to the Dorm Bash right? I know it's not for a couple weeks but there’ll be two kegs and uh, we could use more cute girls there. So.”

Kara has the sudden and distinct thought that she wouldn’t be caught dead within a thousand yards of The Dorm Bash for fear that Dan would do something weird with her body.

“Sure,” She says brightly. “I’ll try to make it.”

///

Syllabus is unequivocally the busiest week for the Tipsy Taxi. Officer Sawyer had told her as much when she took the job, and Kara is seeing it herself now as she runs herself ragged working double shifts. She’s out every night, bundled in a parka over her regulation campus safety polo and khakis, patrolling the popular off-campus haunts like Greek Row as well as the designated pick up spots. She sees Lena on several of these trips, usually ill-dressed for the weather, always in front of the Delta Chi house. She clutches a red Solo cup in one hand and a cigarette in the other and laughs animatedly at a story Albie or Maeve is telling her. Sometimes Jack is with her, one arm flung affectionately over her shoulders, but most of the time he’s not.

As it is, she rarely makes it home before 5 in the morning. And the Friday of syllabus week is no different; it’s still dark outside as she trundles home from the campus safety building talking to Winn on her phone. He’s been up all night working on a project to submit to some conference in Eugene and has just barely made it back to his off-campus apartment. She can hear him shuffling around in bed as he talks to her.

“How’s life with the Luthor?” He asks, stifling a yawn.

“It’s fine. I mean, yesterday night I caught her snorting a line of adderall off my Ethics in Journalism textbook with a cardboard tampon applicator, but overall, things could be worse I guess.” She doesn’t mention the night of her nightmare or subsequent panic attack, nor how she’d thrown her blanket over Lena’s shoulders at the toilet. She’s grown accustomed to telling Winn mostly everything in her life, has nobody else to tell it to really, other than Alex, but something about it feels secret. He chuckles as she comes within spitting distance of her dorm building.

“That sounds about right. If you want to pitch your story to Cat Grant about annual coke consumption on campus, at least you have a pretty good source.”

She snorts. “Shut up.” As Kara walks through the mostly quiet halls of her dorm, she notices that the light under her doorway is on. She bids Winn a goodnight, promising to see him at the gym the next day, and quietly undoes her door lock, stepping over the threshold.

Lena is sat at her desk, headphones in, knee jiggling as she pours over an expensive looking engineering textbook. She perks up when Kara enters, smiling. Much like most nights, most of her body is enveloped in an oversized cardigan. Kara finds herself wondering if she’ll shed it in the spring or the summer, and what takes it’s place after. “Hey, Kara.” Her name sounds like honey coming out of Lena’s mouth. Kara tries to line this image of Lena, sleepy-eyed and soft, up with the image of her doing keg stands in a frat basement. She finds that she can’t. “Long night?”

“Yup.” As Kara begins to shed her layers, a little damp from the condensation outside, she notices that Lena is fidgeting more than usual. She’s observed that her roommate is a little jerky generally after a night of too many stimulants and wine, but this is a touch beyond. She seems almost nervous about something, and her eyes are darting between where Kara is delayering next to her bed and her desk.

“I actually have something. For you. I have something for you.” Quickly, as if not to lose her nerve, Lena opens her top desk drawer and fishes something out. When she turns back around to face Kara, who’s dressed down into her undershirt and long underwear, she’s holding a small succulent in a terracotta pot.

“Oh,” Kara says with surprising clarity. “It’s a succulent.”

“It’s an apology.” Lena clarifies. “For who I am as a person, generally. And for that night I threw up in our bathroom, and for doing all that adderall on your book. I thought about getting flowers, but they tend to die, and succulents pretty much live through anything.” She extends her arms, moving the offering closer to Kara. She accepts it, holds it in her hands, but she’s looking the whole time at Lena, who’s face is red and who’s talking like she’s out of breath. The plant is small but sturdy looking, and blushing a slight pink on the underside of it’s leaves.

“I love it.” Kara says genuinely. She has the sudden urge to place her hand on Lena’s knee to calm it’s frantic movement, soothe it up and down her thigh. She looks so skittish and oddly vulnerable that Kara feels a pang of sympathy deep in her gut. The tips of her fingers tingle. “Please try not to snort any adderall off of it.”

Lena laughs at that, some of the anxiety melting off her body and Kara feels the ease of it, too. She places the plant on the window seat where it can soak up the sun and then sinks into her bed. She doesn’t get much rest that night, even after Lena turns off her desk light and crawls beneath her own sheets. It’s funny, she’s never realized how much a person can make their presence known in a room until she feels Lena as intimately as if she were in her bed with her, breathing against the soft hairs near her ear.

///

 **Kara [615 PM]** Whats your guyses deal tonight

 **James [616 PM]** Rugby practice

 **James [616 PM]** :(

 **Winn [620 PM]** Still in the lab!! Science never sleeps baby lmao

Kara sighs and flops down onto her bed, arms across her middle, looking up at the ceiling. She checks her phone again, fruitlessly, before wriggling around to try and find her laptop under the blankets. Her attention drifts while she watches _House Hunters_ on her back with the laptop placed on her chest. She looks around the room, at Lena’s side of it, and notices that her throw blanket is still resting on her roommate’s bed.

Eventually, she flops onto her stomach, bored, and switches to her go-to when she’s in a funk: cat videos. Checks her phone again, no notifications. Before she can let herself  think better of it she opens Lena’s Instagram and looks at her story; for whatever reason she seems to be at an Applebee’s at 7:30 on a Friday night belting out Take Me Home Country Roads on a karaoke machine with a server. Kara watches it twice before putting her phone away.

Her gaze drifts to the potted succulent on the window seat, noting that the pot looks a little plain. Before she knows what she’s doing she’s sitting at the desk with the plant in front of her, decorating the pot with some old paints she’d used for a Gen Ed art class last semester. She names the plant Henry, paints his name on the pot, and leaves him on some old newspaper to dry.

Kara watches Lena’s Instagram story again before she goes to sleep and catches herself scrolling 52 weeks back into her pictures before realizing how absurd the whole thing is. Predictably, it’s several hours before she’s able to convince her body to rest and even then it’s thin and restless—she wakes up every time somebody tromps down their hallway, startled and disoriented.

It’s no surprise, then, that she wakes up too when Lena comes stumbling in at half past 2 in the morning. The door flies open and hits the opposite wall, causing a commotion followed by a beat of silence. Lena stands still for a moment in the doorway, then quietly edges in, shutting the door behind her. Kara can tell by her stumbling gait that she’s drunk, and the way her body falls repeatedly into the bed frame that she’s struggling to get out of her clothes. It seems to take forever for her to crawl beneath her sheets. But when she finally does, there’s another period of quiet.

“Kara?” She hears Lena whisper from across the room. “You awake?”

Kara says nothing and remains still, focusing on making her breathing slow and even. She hears a small noise coming from Lena’s bed, muffled and wet, and her stomach drops when she realizes that Lena is crying. She hiccups, sniffles into her pillow, and tries to keep quiet but mostly fails. Kara stays where she is listening to the sobs trend further and further apart until eventually they turn into quiet, soft snores.

///

It feels like a minor miracle when she doesn’t wake up until 9:30 on Saturday. Her body feels denser than normal, her eyes a little heavier, and they’re sore to open. When she turns to look at Lena she’s still asleep, drooling a little onto her pillow. Kara smiles fondly.

“Lena,” She whispers, pushing at her shoulder a little. Lena’s eyelid flutter, then open completely. She lets out a whining, gravelly noise. “Hungover?”

“I think I’m still a little drunk.”

“What if I went and got us some food from Noonan’s?”

Lena buries her face into the pillow and makes a keening noise that Kara takes to mean _yes, please._

At Noonan’s she picks up a dozen donuts and two large coffees, keeping Lena’s black out of instinct. When she returns to the room Lena is sitting up in bed and rubbing at her eyes, she has indents from the sheets all over her arms and chest and the left side of her hair is poofing up. Kara’s heart speeds up at the sight.

“Oh my God,” Lena moans. “I could kiss you.”

They sit together on Kara’s bed and make light conversation while they eat, and eventually transition to watching something on Netflix. It’s an old ID Discovery crime documentary and they make fun of the production value while licking crumbs off their fingers. Lena tells the story of her night in the bits and pieces she can patch together, laughing at herself the whole time.

“Yeah, I saw your Instagram.” Kara comments. “Looks like you had a lot of fun in that Applebee’s.”

Lena’s got a delighted look on her face, obviously trying to hold back a smile and failing. “I know. I saw that you saw my Instagram.”

Kara balks. “You can’t see it when I watch your stuff!”

“I can.” Lena chuckles and shows a mortified Kara how to get a list of everybody who’s watched your story. “I honestly don’t remember any of that anyway.” She’s picking at invisible lint on her shirt, not making eye contact. “My mom keeps getting on my case about stuff. I kind of lose my cool when she’s on me like that.”

“What stuff?”

“I kind of lied to her about what major I picked when I came to school. She’s like, very invested in me going into business. But I didn’t want to do that.”

“So she’s mad that you’re an...engineering major?”

Lena offers a lopsided grin with no mirth behind it. “Top of my class. She hates it. I know she’s not going to do anything about it, though. I’m kind of her last hope for salvaging the family name.”

“Only child?”

She nods absently. “Something like that. Hey,  is it weird that I’m kind of hungry again?”

Glancing at the clock and realizing that it’s almost noon, Kara tells her emphatically that it’s not. They put their heads together and spend 10 minutes deciding on an order that Kara keeps track of on the back of that morning’s Noonan’s receipt. She learns that Lena hates mushrooms, but loves black olives, and that the oly kind of soda she drinks is Diet Coke. And that she insists on paying for everything with her credit card, rolling her eyes and commenting that she’ll never see the bill.

“I might be wrong,” Lena says once Kara’s resumed her place next to her on the bed. “But you drive that golf cart full of drunk people around campus, right?”

“It’s called the Tipsy Taxi. But yeah, that’s me.”

“But I never see you at any parties. Outside of the golf cart.”

“I have a lot of studying to do.”

“Kara, no offense, but aren’t you a journalism major?” There’s no malice in Lena’s words, necessarily, and Kara finds herself not taking any genuine offense at the statement. She’s too busy being pleased at the kind of singular, invested interest that her roommate is regarding her with.

“Yeah.” Kara chuckles. “I mean, I also don’t get a lot of invites, other than from James and my other friend Winn. And uh, partying isn’t really my thing. I mean, I’m sure it’s fun and all, but I always feel kind of lost in big groups of people.”

“So you’d rather drive them around in a golf cart all night?”

“Oh yeah. I mean, it’s great because you have the best conversations with people when it’s just you and them and they’re drunk. People really want to talk to you and they care about what you have to say, and you don’t have to worry about sounding like an idiot or sharing too much of yourself. And they’re always so thankful and nice because you’ve picked them up. I like it much better.”

Kara doesn’t really think about the words coming out of her mouth, she just says them because they’re her truth. It’s not until she realizes that Lena is smiling,  the kind of smile  that makes Kara think that all of her past smiles may have been slightly forced, a little disingenuous now that she knows what her real one looks like, that she thinks maybe she said something silly. Lena’s nose is wrinkled and she has the sweetest expression on her face, like she’s about to say something but too taken by the situation to formulate the exact words. “That’s very well put.” She decides on finally, holding Kara’s gaze. It’s only broken a moment later when Kara coughs and looks down, shifting a little on the bed and reaching out with a foot to hit play on her laptop.

“Speaking of parties,” Lena continues. Kara glances over at her and sees that her gaze is focused on her lap now and she’s scratching the back of her neck. “Are you coming to the Dorm Bash tonight?”

“Shoot, I totally forgot. No, I think I’m going over to my sister’s. The Dorm Bash isn’t really my thing.”

Lena laughs, a little more high pitched than usual, and flaps her hands in a way that Kara’s meant to understand conveys _casual. “_ Me neither, it’s totally not my scene either, I wasn’t planning on going anyway. Just curious if you were.” She clears her throat and focuses on the computer screen, where a woman in a bad Lizzie Borden costume is comically hacking away at her father.

“Are you going anywhere else tonight?”

“I don’t know. Jack wants to do something, but.” She shrugs one shoulder. “We’ll probably end up doing what we always do.”

“Which is…”

“Using our fake IDs to get into a stupid townie bar and blacking out.”

“Ah. Yes. As American as apple pie. Does Jack like that kind of thing too?”

“He doesn’t mind it.” She says, then adds, “I think he wishes I’d do it less.”

Kara drops the conversation after that and they continue to watch the TV in silence, mow through the pizza when it comes, talk about classes and teachers and tests. Kara is surprised by how easily she connects with Lena and how different she appears from the image she’s been building up of her in her head. This Lena is a little high strung but funny and interesting, seemingly full of stories from boarding school, about her nights out, and snarky comments about the show playing on TV. She realizes that in the course of a day she’s let things like her newspaper pitch drift to the back of her mind, which hasn’t happened in weeks. When it gets close to 7, Kara checks her phone and sees that it’s time to leave. There are only a couple of trains left running to Alex’s apartment.

Lena talks on the phone with Jack while Kara gathers her things to catch the train. She can’t always hear what she’s saying, but she catches some of it; a soft laugh, a murmured _I love you._ Lena is drifting around the apartment with her hair tossed over one shoulder and an arm crossed over her chest. She looks happy and at ease as Kara has ever seen her. It leaves a bad taste in the back of her mouth.

Kara doesn’t want to interupt her conversation to say goodbye, so she exits as quietly as she can, taking out her phone in the hallway as she makes her way to the exit.

“I’m going to grab the next train over to your place.” Kara says as soon as Alex picks up. “They’re having the Dorm Bash tonight and I want to get some studying done.” Instead of Alex’s voice assenting, there’s a brief, foreboding silence. Kara feels her stomach drop.

“Kara,” She pauses, and Kara can tell that she’s choosing her words very carefully. “Why don’t you hang out at that party for a little while? At least for like an hour or so, before you bail?”

“Alex--”

“I’m sure James and Winn would want to come. They both live off campus now, they probably miss going to the Dorm Bash.”

“ _Alex--”_

“I mean, what do you need? I can buy you booze, if you want.”

“It’s not that.” Kara sighs. “I just don’t think I’m going to have fun.”

“You might end up surprised. But if you’re really uncomfortable with going, come on over.”

Kara is stopped mid-quad, one arm wrapped around her middle, the other pressing the phone to her face. The only light at this time of night are the large lampposts that illuminate most of campus, giving her position on eerie, ethereal glow. She knows Alex won’t push it much further but she has less fight in her than usual tonight. Her heart just isn’t in the argument.

“If I miss the last train,” She begins, voice tired. “Will you come pick me up from campus?”

“Yes, yes, absolutely.”

Kara sighs heavily. “Okay, I’ll stay. For one hour. And then I’m coming over.” She hears Alex woop a little and can’t help but cracking a small, disbelieving smile.

“I’m proud of you, Kara. Also don’t forget to bring the pepper spray mom got you.”

///

The Dorm Bash sucks, of course. In the back of her mind Kara knew it would, but the reality of the situation is much more grating than she could have ever imagined. James and Winn do end up coming, much to her relief, but 30 minutes in Winn’s attention is stolen by Laurel Perez and James is demonstrating that stupid butt lift they do in rugby in front of the corn hole game, leaving Kara to her own devices.

By the time she’d returned to the dorm, her room had been taken over by Delta Chi girls and she had to struggle through the entryway to her own space to find Lena. When she does find her, she’s crammed in their bathroom with Albie, Maeve, and Jack, doing a bump off of her student ID. She whips her head up, eyebrows raised and lips twitching slightly upwards when she sees Kara. In the background, Maeve and Albie exchange a loaded glance, and Jack just looks bewildered.

“I thought you were going to your sister’s tonight.” She rubs two fingers absentmindedly over her left nostril and purses her lips. “Did you change your mind?”

“Yeah.” Kara chuckles, shifting from foot to foot and rubbing the palm of her hand over her backpack. “I thought I might check it out for a minute.”

“Well, you could come out with us instead.” The girl who Kara knows as Albie chirps. “We’re just going to Bishop’s Collar to dance and scam drinks off of ugly guys.” Lena says nothing, but her eyes are fixed on Kara as if she’s waiting hopefully for an answer. When Kara shakes her head and opens her mouth to decline, Lena takes a few steps closer, her body almost vibrating with pent up energy, and reaches out to touch her upper arm. Kara watches as her tongue darts out to wet the seam of her lips and she seems prepared to say something, but is ultimately cut off by Jack placing a gentle hand on her shoulder and leaning down to say something in her ear.

“Maybe it’s a good idea if we go, huh?”

Lena shakes her head, smiles a little, and nods. The whole herd of them leave together like a flock of birds and she’s left, standing alone again.

 That’s how she gets here, standing off to the side and observing the goings-on in front of her. There’s shitty music and shitty beer, which Kara nurses on disgruntledly as she stands off near the entrance to her dorm. The hour is almost up, blessedly, and her only saving grace so far has been that Dan hasn’t tried to talk to her.

“Hey Kar, enjoying the party?” _Spoke too soon,_ she thinks to herself as the looks up at Dan Maplethorpe-Armstrong’s slightly sweaty face. He’s standing way too close to her, a waft of CVS brand cologne causing her features to crumple. He’s wearing another, different Red Hot Chili Peppers t-shirt.

“Yeah, sure.” Kara smiles politely. She finishes her beer in one bitter swallow and grabs her phone, preparing to dial Alex’s number. “I’m actually about to leave, though, I promised my sister I would come over later--”

“Hey,” He grabs the phone in her hand and Kara’s jaw drops open and eyebrows shoot up. “Why don’t you stay a little while longer and hang out? We can go back and drink in my room if it’s too loud out here for you…”

“No, definitely not.” Kara states firmly, pulling her hand out of his grasp. Dan’s eyebrows knit together.

“Shit, how are you so strong?”

“None of your business--move out of my way.” As it is, he’s blocking her path out of the dorm hall, and while Kara is strong he has a good foot on her and is probably at least 20 pounds heavier. “Dan I swear to God--”

“Is there a problem here?” She’s relieved to hear James’s voice, and even more so when she sees Winn standing next to him, arms crossed and trying his best to look stern. Cowed, Dan steps back a little and puts his hands up and out in a defensive posture.

“No, me and Kara were just talking.”

Winn and James both look to Kara, who simply shakes her head. “I’m not really in the mood tonight. Can I just go?”

“Yeah, we’ll walk you to the train station.” Kara retrieves her bag and the three of them leave together, Winn attempting to shoulder-check Dan on his way out but winces and rubs his own shoulder once they’re out of sight.

///

The next morning, Kara wakes up in Alex’s bed with 15 new notifications on her phone. Alex is gone, at work already, so there’s nobody around to stop Kara from lazing in her sheets for an extra thirty minutes. Curious, she opens her group message with Winn and James. She has to double take and rub her eyes to make sure she’s seeing the pictures correctly. The first text is a photo of Dan’s room, with the words _Nasty Perv_ spray painted in sharp across his wall. The text under it says _can you believe this shit?_

Next there’s a message from an unknown number--another picture, this one of Dan’s face. His eyebrows are shaved off and he has a dick drawn on his forehead. It looks to be candid, taken as Dan is stepping out of his bedroom with a disgruntled, confused look on his face.

 **_Unknown number [832 AM]_ ** _lololololol_

 **_Kara [915 AM]_ ** _Who is this??_

 **_Unknown number [916 AM]_ ** _Lena, duh._

 **_Lena [916 AM]_ ** _Looks like you guys had fun after we left haha_

Kara collapses back on her bed, letting out a deep breath. Looks like somebody did have fun, after all.


	2. two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “For all the effort they put into this, you would think they would pick a more catchy slogan than frats suck, huh?”

“Maggie, you have to throw me a bone here. My deadline is coming up and let me tell you, a story about my RA getting a dick drawn on his forehead is not going to cut it!”

“Kara, I like you a lot. But I never should have hired you. In fact, I should have fired you as soon as you started trying to write stories for the paper. But! Drunk people love you. You make them happy and give them free water bottles and sometimes you take them to 7/11 to buy snack cakes before you drive them home. That being said,” Maggie leans across the desk in her small, cluttered office. “I can’t tell you anything-- _ anything-- _ about ongoing investigations that Campus Safety may or may not be handling.”

Kara sits ramrod straight in her chair, tape recorder poised in her lap. She’s wearing her lucky khakis and cardigan combo, the one that she hopes screams  _ I’m not taking no for an answer.  _ Pursing her lips, she leans forward as well and encroaches into Maggie’s space.

“Just one thing, Maggie. One story is all I need! You don’t even need to name names. Just give me a lead to follow. I’ll owe you my life. You’ll never have to pay me to drive the Taxi again!”

“Tempting,” Maggie hums, “but also technically illegal. And you’re work study anyway. Look, Kara, I think we can strike a deal--God, I can’t believe I’m saying this--”

“What is it?” Kara responds eagerly. “I’ll do anything you want.”

  
“Jesus, don’t say it like that.” Maggie rubs her chin and looks a little constipated. “Your sister is Alex Danvers right, class of 2016?”

“Yes?” Kara draws out the word and turns her head slightly to the side, regarding Maggie curiously. 

“We went to an alumni mixer a couple months ago and had a great time, but I didn’t get her number like an idiot. If you could just--”

“Say no more,” Kara waves a hand in front of her face. “It’s done. She’ll give you a call later this week, I promise.”

“Are you sure?”

“Trust me.” Kara deadpans. “You’re her type. Now about that lead…”

Maggie sighs heavily and leans back in her chair, popping open the top button of her white regulation polo. “Okay, but my name  _ cannot  _ be attached to this, I mean it, Kara...”

///

When Kara returns to the dorm that evening, she finds Lena sitting at her desk eating salad out of a mixing bowl that she’s hugging between her knees. She swivels around to greet Kara, fork halfway to her mouth, and smiles. Kara can see a TV show paused on the laptop behind her.

“Dinner of champions, huh?”

Lena’s grin turns lopsided. “You want a bite?”

“What is it?”

“Arugula, mostly.”

Kara wrinkles her nose. “Pass, but thank you.”

Lena shrugs and tucks back in, doing a pleased upper-body wiggle as she eats. It makes Kara’s whole heart constrict and then try to physically leave her body. They’re quiet while Kara drops her things and scoots up onto her own bed, save for Lena’s small sniffs and the sound of her grazing, but she doesn’t turn around or turn her show back on. She seems content enough to stay where she is. 

“I met with Maggie Sawyer today.” Kara says finally, once she’s sat criss-cross in her bed. 

“Oh? Did she finally give you some leads for your story?”

Kara hums. “Some. Um, just out of curiosity, Jack is in a frat, right?”

“Mmhm, yeah. Pi Lam. But you knew that already, I think.” Lena looks up at her, eyebrow quirked. Kara swallows and adjusts her glasses further up her nose.

“I did, but Winn was thinking about maybe pledging next semester, so.” It’s a lie, and a weird lie at that, but it’s the only thing Kara can think of to say in the moment.

Her roommate’s eyebrows jump even further up. “Winn Schott wants to join a fraternity?”

“Yes?”

“I think it might be a little late in the semester for that.” Lena murmurs into another bite of arugula. Kara sighs into the ensuing silence--this line of questioning isn’t going as well as she’d initially hoped.

“Tell me about Jack.”

That doesn’t go over well either, judging by Lena’s crumpled face. She’s still grinning at least, but her eyebrows are furrowed and her lips are parted as if she doesn’t really know what to do with the question. She sets what’s left of her salad on her desk and crosses her arms. “What about him?”

“I don’t know. You never really talk about him. Word on the street is that you guys have been dating since the 5th grade.”

Lena snorts. “Hardly. We met in elementary school, yes. But we haven’t been dating for that long.”

  
“Middle school? High school?”

“Kara.” Lena speaks in a firm voice that takes Kara by surprise with its harshness. For her part, Lena seems a little taken aback by herself and licks her lips, shaking her head a little. She uncrosses her arms, crosses them again. “I guess I just don’t understand why all of this is so important to you. Why do you care how long I’ve been dating Jack?”

To Kara, it seems like a very simple question. Apparently not, judging by how Lena won’t exactly meet her eyes. “I just want to get a sense for him. I haven’t really gotten a chance to talk to him in person but--if it’s a sore subject, we can drop it.”

“He’s my oldest friend.” Lena admits. “And he’s very kind, and he loves me. Albie and Maeve are only my friends because I’m fun to party with and I always buy all of the alcohol.” She sniffs. “Jack likes to go on hikes and sit at the movies with me. He likes me even when I’m sober.”

The statement sits heavy in the bottom of Kara’s stomach. “He sounds like a really good guy.”

“He is.” Lena agrees.

“Probably need more guys like him in fraternities, huh?”

“Kara,” Lena deadpans. “Please tell me this isn’t an attempt at questioning me for your story. pitch” Okay, so the jig is up. Kara probably should have known that Lena would smell something off about her as soon as she entered the room, and her interviewing technique isn’t quite as refined yet as she’d like it to be. Alex is always telling her that subtlety isn’t really her strong suit, and she’s probably right.

“Uh, no?” Lena continues to stare her down. “Okay, yeah, kind of.”

“And it couldn’t possibly be connected in any way to Harvey Lum?” Kara is silent. Lena sighs. “I thought so. Look, it’s horrible what happened to Harvey But please trust me, Jack wasn’t there. He doesn’t participate in hazings.”

“But he lives in the house.” Kara prods. She’s not trying to rankle Lena exactly, but she’s the closest thing Kara has to a connection to this story aside from the vague details that Maggie had given her earlier. Her gut tells her that there’s nothing here, just another garden-variety unfortunate and avoidable alcohol poisoning story, but if there is something--well, Lena would probably be the one to know.

“Not everybody who lives in the house participates in this kind of thing.” She responds tersely. “There’s a core group of boys who lead all of the hazings. And there’s one who’s the ring leader of the thing, and last Jack told me, he was suspended for it.”

“Seriously?”

“Really, I think his name is Mike Elich. Some of the guys at the frat call him Mon El, don’t ask me why, I don’t know and I don’t want to know.” Lena shakes her head a little. “Also, Jack hates him. You can put that in your story. That’s on the record.”

“Do you know how Harvey’s doing?”

“In the hospital, I guess.” Lena twitches her nose. “I don’t know how long it was that he wasn’t breathing, but at least somebody found him before he died. That’s what happens when you let somebody stick a tampon soaked in vodka in your butt, I guess.”

“Is that what did it?” Kara nearly yells. Her voice is 3 octaves higher than normal. “Why would anybody do that!”

“I think it was all the drinking prior that did him in, the butt thing was probably just an extra nail in the coffin. Didn’t Maggie Sawyer go over the details with you in her office?”

“Nothing particular. She wouldn’t name names. Which, you can’t tell anybody that you heard this from me and I heard it from her, okay?”

“Cross my heart.”

Kara offers a small smile, pleased. At least it seems like her initial gut reaction was probably right, although it leads her exactly back to square one. There’s no blaming Maggie about it, though, she probably offered Kara the juiciest tidbit she had. Alex is getting a date out of it, anyway, so at least there’s some silver lining.

“She was mostly preoccupied with trying to ask out my sister.” Kara discloses. “Now I have to get Alex to call her. But I guess it probably won’t be very much of a problem.”

  
She’s surprised when Lena doesn’t respond right away. Even more so when she studies her face and finds it crumpled in--surprise? Distaste? She can’t quite tell, and it makes Kara uncomfortable. It was an offhanded statement meant to be met with an equally offhanded answer, not this extended, thorny silence. “Wow. Your sister is gay?” Lena isn’t making eye contact again, she’s grabbed back her salad and is looking very interested instead in a leafy green she has speared on her fork. 

“Yeah? No offense, but that’s your takeaway?” Kara doesn’t try to hide the defensiveness in her voice. “People are gay sometimes, Lena.”

“No, it’s not--nevermind, actually.” Lena shakes her head and begins to turn back toward her computer. “My salad is getting kind of wilty and I wanna finish my show, so.”

“Sure, yeah, go ahead.” Kara frowns as she watches Lena turn her back to her. 

///

“I think Lena Luthor is a homophobe.” Kara slams her tray down next to Winn’s, startling the boy so much that he jumps and bangs both knees against the bottom of the table. James is regarding them both with an amused expression, moving his eggs around his plate absently.

“Kara, it is…” Winn checks his watch. “7 AM in the morning. Can we have this conversation after I’m finished with my coffee?”

“ _ No.”  _ Kara states, pointing a finger in his direction. “We’re having it now.”

“So what happened? Did you find her throwing Tegan and Sara CDs out of your dorm window? Ripping up a copy of Oscar Wilde’s complete works with her bare hands?” 

“Winn, that’s enough.” James warns, but he’s trying hard to hide a smile.

“Ghost writing on a Westboro Baptist Church internet forum?”

“Shut up, Winn.” Kara takes a huge mouthful of potatoes and washes it down with a gulp of orange juice. “She got, like, super weird when I mentioned that Maggie wants to ask Alex out. She was all like,  _ oh, your sister’s gay?  _ Who says that?”

“To be fair, Kara,” James reasons, “You have a history of overreacting about this kind of thing. Remember when that guy made a UHAUL joke at one of my rugby games and Winn had to hold you back from decking him?”

“Officer Sawyer has a thing for you sister?” Winn asks, still hunched over a cup of coffee. “That’s cool. But how, may I ask, do you know that?”

“She asked me for her number in exchange for giving me information about that hazing at Pi Lam.”

“Wow.” James nods contemplatively. “There’s a lot to unpack from that sentence.”

“Yeah, like what hazing?”

“Apparently a guy got alcohol poisoning during a hazing last weekend and had to be sent to the hospital. He’s okay now, but.” Kara shrugs and notices that Winn and James are sharing an inscrutable look. She furrows her eyebrows and watches them attempt to silently communicate over their empty breakfast trays. “Hello? You guys okay?”

“Yeah.” James clears his throat. “That just sucks. But I thought you were going to write your story about your RA’s room getting vandalized?”

“I mean let’s be honest, he kind of deserved it. I don’t know if I can write an unbiased story about that.”

James actually beams at that and Winn has to cover a giggle by stuffing a piece of pancake into his mouth. Kara looks on from the fringes of it, tired and confused, but chalks it up to everybody’s lack of coffee. “Anyway, Kara,” James continues, “I wouldn’t think too much into the Lena thing. Lots of people act weird for lots of reasons. Doesn’t mean she hates gay people.”

Kara looks between them again, and supposes he’s probably right about that.

 

\\\\\

Most nights when she returns to the dorm, Kara finds Lena sitting at her desk absorbed in a thick, glossy equation manual and a yellow dollar-bin steno book--all of them yellow, at least the ones she’s filled so far, and there’ve been a few. Tonight is no different from all the rest. From over her shoulder, Kara can see small, block letters written in Lena’s careful hand, numbers, perfectly straight, careful lines, slopes and angles and cylinders full of slashed lines. She doesn’t even look up as Kara opens the door, drops her things, and crawls into her bed. Her hand is flying over the page as if she’s writing a long, intricate story that flows from paper to paper. 

Every now and then she stops, consults her textbook, chews on the eraser of her mechanical pencil. Kara watches from her perch as she arcs her body, stretching it this way and that, and rubs at her forehead with the palm of her hand. Another habit that’s arisen lately is sucking on hard candy, which Kara is delighted by, mostly because it gives her fodder for teasing--it’s just such an  _ old lady  _ thing to do. Lena says it keeps her concentrated, and most of the time she gets Jolly Ranchers and saves all the purple ones for Kara, so she can’t really complain. 

Kara can hear the soft clacking and knows she’s probably working one around in her mouth, fixating on something in that yellow steno book. She never goes to the library when she gets into this kind of mood, says she can hear the other people thinking too loud. Kara wonders if she can’t hear her thinking, or if she can and just doesn’t mind it quite as much. 

“If you take a picture it’ll last longer.” Kara blinks. Lena’s turned around over the back of her chair, arm slung over, content smile settled on her face. 

“I was just looking at your notes. They’re kind of beautiful.” Lena hums and turns her head back for a moment. She drops her pencil onto the steno book, opens the top drawer and fishes around for what Kara assumes is more candy.

“They’re alright, I guess. Want one?”

“Sure.” 

“I actually picked you something up at the bookstore today, too.” Kara furrows her brow and watches as Lena wheels over to place two candies, purple ones, into the palm of her hand. She also hands her a hardcover book, thick and weighty.

“You brought me an Ann Rule book?” Kara asks, bemused. She turns it over to study the back cover, shaking her head a little. Lena’s pleased smile only grows as she wheels back over to her own side of the room. Kara thinks of the first time she’d given her a gift, how nervous she’d been, compared to her ease now. Probably she’s seen how Kara dotes over her succulent, and the name she’d painted onto it’s terracotta plot. Probably it had made her cocky. 

“I saw it and thought of you. She’s also an investigative journalist from the pacific northwest. Maybe it’ll jog your inspiration for your newspaper pitch--if you like that one, I’ll get you  _ The Stranger Beside Me,  _ too.”

“I’m not really into true crime. But it’s thoughtful, thank you.”

“Could have fooled me.” Lena’s still smiling, unwrapping another candy. Her posture is easy, relaxed, and she’s turned her back completely on her school work. Kara knows that it means she wants to talk, on days when she’s uninterested in leaving her own interior world she doesn’t even bother to acknowledge her roommate. Kara has come to love these times. She can feel herself blooming under Lena’s attention, her interest, like a flower under the sun. Lena asks her about her day and she answers easily, talking about absolutely nothing of consequence, her classes, her breakfast with Winn and James. She leaves out the bits about Lena and doesn’t mention the nagging in the back of her head about the way she’d reacted to her comment about Maggie and Alex. James was probably right after all; people act weird for a lot of different reasons. She doesn’t really have any proof to say otherwise.

In the end, when Lena returns to her endless pages of equations, Kara turns onto her side in bed and feels the book knock against her somewhere under the sheets. Reaching down, she grabs it, holds it in front of her, and then begins to read. She reads all night, nose almost buried into the spine, and when Lena finally rises to sleep just after 1 in the morning she catches her eye, says nothing, but the look on her face is enough. 

 

//

 

“Oh by the way, Maggie wants you to call her.”

“That hot cop you work for? Shut up.”

“No, I’m serious. She says you guys had a real night of magic at that alumni mixer.” Kara is

walking quickly down Pearl street, cold, chapped hand holding her phone to her ear. She has the other one stuffed in the jacket of her parka. It’s an unusually brisk end of January day and she’s on her way to James’s off-campus apartment for an afternoon of pizza and movies. She’s passing by Greek Row at a quick clip, barely noticing her surroundings as she speeds by. “I’ll text you her number.”  
“Yes please. How’s the story pitch going?”

“It sucks. Everything sucks.” Kara grumbles. “I’m thinking it was maybe a little ambitious to try and get my own beat on the paper as a freshman. Maybe I should pull back, mull over my priorities a little, and then come back next year--” At that moment, she catches a flash of something red out of the corner of her eye and glances to her right. She continues to walk for a moment, stops, backs up, and looks to the left of her, mouth ajar.

“Kara? You okay?”

“Uh yeah! I’m going to have to call you back though.”

“Whatever. Remember to text me Maggie’s number!”

“Okayloveyoubye.” Kara hangs up the phone and puts it back in her pocket without looking at it. Her gaze is focused steadfastly forward, at the Pi Lam house. Or, what looks like the Pi Lam house; all of the windows are broken, the facade is spray painted with vulgar symbols, and there are a series of sheets hanging from the second floor dormer spelling out one frank message:

_ FRATS SUCK _

There’s a small group of gawkers gathering around the front yard of the house, including a few who appear to be brothers shaking their heads in disbelief. Kara looks both ways and crosses the street, entering the throng of onlookers and looking for a familiar face. She spots Jack near the front of the house and makes a beeline towards him.

“Jack!” He perks up and waves a little when he catches her eye. They’re not very familiar with one another, But he’s nice, and Kara’s aware he’s too nice to blow off a social obligation.

“Hey Kara.” He says when she catches up to him. “Crazy stuff, huh?”

“No kidding. When did this happen?”

Jack shrugs and glances back up at the house, scratching the back of his head. “No idea. The whole house was in Portland last night, we literally just got back.”

“Portland? For what?”

“We had to do a mandatory training as punishment after the hazing thing. It was either that or get our affiliation suspended for the rest of the semester.” He glances back at her, smiling sheepishly. “For all the effort they put into this, you would think they would pick a more catchy slogan than  _ frats suck _ , huh?”

This stirs a genuine chuckle out of Kara, who regards the house again. She’s not a contractor by any means, but all the broken windows, the spray paint--it looks like it’s a few thousand dollars in property damage, at least. Whoever did it is going to be in hot water. She says as much to Jack, who nods his head in agreement. 

“That’s the truth. Hey, Kara, it was good to catch up, but I’ve gotta--” He gestures with his thumb to where the other Pi Lam guys are gathering in a small circle to the left. Kara smiles pleasantly and waves him away.

“No totally, good luck.”

He smiles and nods, heading over toward the group. Kara watches him go and then peeks up again, squinting against the winter sun. Something about it is nagging at her. Before she leaves she takes out her cell phone and snaps a quick picture of the facade of the house, glancing at it on her phone before calling James.

“Hey,” She says when he picks up, turning away and crossing back over the street in a brisk jog. “I hate to do this but I have to cancel our plans…”

///

“Lena, could you come give me your opinion on something?” 

Behind her, Lena takes out her headphones and rolls her chair over to sit beside Kara at her desk. “Sure, what’s up?”

“What do you see in these pictures?” On her computer screen are two images side by side, one of Dan Maplethorpe-Armstrong’s vandalized bedroom, the other of the front of the Pi Lam house. Lena squints, cradling her chin in the cupped palm of one of her hands. 

“Um, surprisingly ineffective spraypaint messaging.” Kara rolls her eyes.

“I mean, do these look similar to you?”

“I guess. The paint is definitely the same and the handwriting looks right. Do you still have that picture I sent you of Dan?”

Kara nods and pulls it up from her task bar. Lena hums as if she’s just cracked the whole case wide open. “Look at that dick on his forehead. It looks just like the one right there on the front of the house.” Kara makes an impressed face. She’s absolutely right. “What, do you think these are done by the same person?”

“I mean, there’s definitely some interesting coincidences.”

“Well look at you, Ann Rule, maybe that book has been giving you inspiration after all.” Lena leans back in her chair and crosses her arms. “So what’s the next move?”

“Well, even though all the Pi Lam guys were gone that night, somebody still had to pull off a pretty brazen vandalization right on Greek Row. What do you think the chances are that nobody saw or heard anything?”

“Oh, slim to none.”

“That’s what I’m thinking too.” Kara taps her pen against her lips contemplatively. “And it would also have to have been somebody who would know that none of the brothers would be home until the next afternoon.”

Lena hums and nods her head. “You know, Delta Chi is having a fundraiser party for the  repairs to the house on Saturday night. Lots of Greek Life people will be there, people who maybe saw something.”

Kara’s face brightens up and she turns to face Lena so quickly that the other woman looks somewhat startled by her intensity. “Do you think I could come with you guys? Ask around the party to see if anybody saw anything?”

“Yes.” Kara beams. “But on one condition.” Kara’s face falls. “You have to try and have a little  bit of fun while you’re there. Drink more than one beer, and don’t just talk to people about the vandalism. Trust me, they’ll be way more open to answering your questions. And maybe ditch the khakis for a night.” Lena begins to roll away back to her desk, leaving Kara pouting in her wake.

“But I like my khakis.”

///

On Saturday, Lena leaves early in the afternoon to help set up for the party, leaving Kara to work out her entrance on her own. She calls Alex, who seconds Lena’s  _ no khakis for a night  _ recommendation, but otherwise spends the rest of their conversation cooing unhelpfully about how much fun Kara’s going to have. Her next step is a three way call with Winn and James, both much more useful, and they discuss three potential outfits that say  _ I’m here for business but I also know to have fun.  _ In the end, they settle on black jeans with a sweater over a collared shirt and her hair in a sort of half-up, half-down situation. 

“I don’t think these jeans have big enough pockets to fit my notepad in.”

“Maybe skip the notepad.” Winn suggests gently. “Try the power of your own memory.”

They’re done by 7:30, although both men unanimously caution her not to leave the house until 9 at the earliest. This leaves her to recline on her narrow double bed, careful not to disturb her party outfit or hair, watching  _ Bob’s Burgers _ and checking her phone every 10 minutes until it’s 9:01. It’s a cold, dark walk from her dorm to the poorly lit off-campus streets. But she knows Greek Row like the back of her hand, patrols it often with the Tipsy Taxi, and by the time she’s within a block of Delta Chi she can hear the din of music and people’s voices. 

“Kara!” She’s not even halfway up the front yard when she spots Albie and Maeve sitting together on the front steps. They’re both bundled up in their winter coats, smoking, flanked already by several full and half-empty cups. “You’re early.”

“Yeah, well, you know…” Kara begins before realizing that she doesn’t really have an excuse that’s not verging on totally pathetic. “Time, I guess.”

Maeve nods her head. “Totally.”

“Where’s Lena?”

“Upstairs, with Jack.” Albie offers. “She said you wanted to talk to some people about what happened on Tuesday. It’s not really going in there yet but I can introduce you to some folks. And get you a drink.”

Inside, they bypass the $5-a-cup entrance fee and Albie fixes Kara a drink she calls “The Eleanor Roosevelt Special”, creatively dodging all of Kara’s questions about what’s in it. It tastes fruity anyway, like white wine and Sprite, and Kara likes it enough. Even though she’d asserted that it wasn’t  _ going _ yet, there are quite a few people already packed into the living area, enough to make it a little stuffy, the lights are turned down low. The space is mostly illuminated by strings of fairy lights, lamps, and paper lanterns that dangle from corners and crannies in the house. The whole thing has a kind of celestial, anonymous feeling.

Albie stays good to her word and introduces Kara round to several boys from other fraternities, random people and other acquaintances before she drifts away to find Maeve with a promise to check up on her later. It’s fine, Kara tells herself. Albie obviously isn’t interested in the particulars of this investigation and, anyway, it’s her project, so she should be fine just...talking to people. Asking them about the night in question, stuff like that.

She torpedos an interaction with a guy named Dirk (she thinks, it might also have been Derek) when he can’t hear her speak over the punchy music and he eventually wanders off while she’s mid-sentence. Then there’s the dark haired girl who listens to her talk for 30 seconds before promptly turning to vomit in the corner of the room. Then there’s Dirk again, who tries to grab her ass. She takes an interlude to try and replicate the drink she’d gotten from Albie, and mixes something that tastes vaguely like a Smartie before deeming it good enough. 

For a moment, the thought crosses her mind that she might want to try and find Lena. Then she remembers what Albie’d said, that she was upstairs with Jack, and thinks about what couples do when they go upstairs together at parties. She feels a little sick about it for no reason at all and instead of pursuing the line of thought she charges back into the throng, larger now than it was a half hour ago, and tries to get somebody’s attention. Unfortunately her method of tapping on people’s shoulders and trying to shout  _ Hey!  _ Loud enough to be heard over the Kesha remix du jour isn’t received well and she ends up relatively alone, drink in grasp, in the churn of people around her. 

She doesn’t react strongly to the feeling of a hand on her elbow, it’s grown crowded enough that it’s been happening regularly, and when she glances over she sees that it’s Albie. The other woman is making a gesture with her fingers that Kara takes to mean  _ cigarette  _ and she nods, allowing her to pull her free of the crowd, out of the kitchen, and into the backyard. It’s quieter out there, colder too, and Kara wraps her arms protectively around her body. 

“Sorry.” Albie says once they’re outside. “You looked a little lost in there.”

“I was.” Kara agrees, watches her pull a crumpled soft pack out of her jeans and fish out a cigarette. Next come a pack of matches, which she lights against the pack with the smooth, brisk movement of somebody with a habit, then discards the burnt-out remains behind them in the bushes. 

“So,” Kara begins, trying to make conversation. She rubs at her upper arms to encourage blood flow. “How are you liking the sorority so far?”  
“It’s okay.” Albie responds mildly. “I kind of miss living with Lena in the dorms but it’s cool. All of the girls are really nice, anyway.”

“You guys must have had a lot of fun,” Kara remarks, “Living in a suite all together.”

“Definitely. Lena’s a tough cookie but we miss having her around. I wish she’d just rushed the sorority with us when we asked her to.”

“Why didn’t she?” 

“Her mom was a Delta Chi when she went here. It’s a sore spot for Lena.”

“Right, right, cool, that makes sense.” Kara nods furtively. Now seems like a good time to quash another question, one unrelated to her investigation, once and for all. After all, who, other than Jack, spends more time with Lena than Albie and Maeve? “Hey, unrelated question, but when you guys lived together did Lena ever express any...animosity toward, I don’t know, the LGBT community?”

Albie bursts out in a peel of laughter, leaning forward with one arm crossed over her midsection and the other holding her cigarette away from her hair. She guffaws for a good 10 seconds before righting herself, wiping a tear from her eye, and looking back over at Kara who’s stood still and regarding her with a look of confusion.

“Oh shit, you’re serious.” She murmurs soberly. “Uh, no. Trust me, Lena’s a big fan of the gays.”

  
“Oh.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t worry about it. Damn, I’m glad she invited you tonight, Kara. You’re a hoot. I hope you’re getting all of the information you need.”

“Not really.” Kara chuckles. “It’s a little harder to interview people at a party than I thought.”

“That reminds me actually--just a sec, do you mind holding my cigarette while I take a piss?”

“Not at all, I guess.” Kara takes the lit cigarette from Albie and holds it between her thumb and pointer finger away from her body. Albie bites back a smile at the look of it.

“You can have some if you want.” She says, undoing the zipper of her pants and squatting down. She pulls her pants and underwear forward and away from her body. Kara turns her head away politely and regards the cigarette for a moment before taking a short, deep drag of it. It feels and tastes acrid and she coughs out smoke violently, pitching forward. She can hear Albie laughing and whooping in the background. 

“Wasn’t bad for your first try!” She says jovially. “Anyway, as I was saying, my friend Megan was at the Dorm Bash that night that Dan Maplethorpe-Armstrong got his face vandalized. She told me that near the end of it, he got into a fight with Mike Elich.”

“Mike Elich as in the Mike who just got suspended from Pi Lam?” Kara hears Albie rustle around in her purse, and then the sound of a tissue wiping against something. 

“Yup. And he used to date Laurel Perez, she lives on your hall.”

“Yeah, I saw her at the party that night. Winn was talking to her.”

“Well, apparently he saw Dan hitting on her and got real salty about it and they ended up exchanging words and other things.” There’s the metal whistling of a zipper being pulled up and Kara turns back around, handing Albie her cigarette. “Mike is known for being kind of an extreme dumbass, even for a frat guy. I’m just saying, it might be worth looking into.” Albie supplies, looking downright conspiratorial. Kara feels the kind of jittery energy in the pit of her stomach that she only gets when things are falling into place. Before she can respond, the muffled music coming from the house changes to another, familiar beat. Albie’s face lights up. 

“Okay, pause the investigation, we’re going back inside.” She grabs Kara by the elbow again, snuffing her cigarette against the concrete patio and dragging her back toward the house before she can get a word in edgewise. “When the Ignition Remix comes on, you gotta dance, it’s the law.”

 

///   
  


Three Eleanor Roosevelt Specials in and she’s feeling much, much looser. Albie is the kind of person it’s almost impossible to feel self-conscious around and Kara shimmies about with her on the makeshift dance floor packed with other drunk 20-somethings. She lets Albie take her hand, twirl her around, wrap her arms around her waist and sway with her giddily. Eventually she gets recruited by Maeve to be on her beer pong team and when Kara wins the game during a celebrity shot she gets roped in as well. 

A couple of frat guys ask to feel her muscles and they end up exchanging weight lifting tips on a dirty couch near the kitchen. Albie refills her cup but Kara scarcely notices--she’s too deeply involved in an argument about Kesha’s new album with a guy in an ironic Bush-Cheyney ‘04 sweatshirt. Her gaze wanders for a moment across the room, spotting Lena near the entrance of the house almost immediately. Kara’s heart stutters and seizes in her chest. Lena’s gaze is already fixed on her, fond-looking, although Jack is next to her with his arm slung over her shoulders and engaged in a conversation with a stranger. She smiles shyly when Kara catches her eye and raises one hand to wiggle her fingers in a little wave. There’s a disco ball casting fragmented, multi-colored light across the room, R Kelly’s Bump n Grind is playing in the background, accenting the mass of bodies moving off-rhythm in her peripheral vision, and Kara feels seized by a phantom warmth that strikes her like sickness but syrupy somehow, slicker, more enchanting. She waves back, feels stupid immediately, and tears her gaze away, hiding her grimace in a deep swallow of her drink. 

If Kara’s life really is a movie, here’s how the rest of the night happens: she’s upstairs in a bathroom with Maeve and Albie laughing hysterically as Meave tries to get a jankety toilet to flush. She’s in an anonymous bedroom watching a group of people pass around a joint and Albie is behind her on the bed, braiding her hair into a crown. She’s downstairs with Jack and Lena, hitting Jack in the shoulder as hard as she can and revelling in his shocked expression and Lena’s delighted laughter. 

Finally, she’s in the yard, on her back and wearing her parka. There’s nobody around her but the music from the house is an ambient buzz in her ear and her cup, filled and emptied and refilled again, is lying somewhere in the ether of grass stretching out beyond her. She hears the crunch of footsteps coming nearer to her, then feels the person sit and stretch down beside her. Kara turns her head to the side and squints. It’s Lena, looking cheeky, eyes glassy and pupils blown out. Their faces are so close they could almost be touching, close enough that she can feel Lena’s warm breath kissing her cheeks with every exhale.

“Hey.” Lena says softly. “Wanna split an Uber home in a minute?”

“Sure.” Kara agrees. “Wait. What time is it?”

  
“Almost 3 am.”

Kara laughs. “What the fuck?”

“I know, time flies when you’re having fun, as the saying goes.” She pauses, and then: “You did have fun, didn’t you?”

  
“Mmhm, I did.”

“I saw you dancing with Albie.”

“Yeah, she’s great. It was all great. I was a little worried about my outfit but I actually think it was a hit.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” With great effort, Kara rolls over so that she’s laying on her side facing Lena, head cushioned by her hands. Lena looks back at her for a moment, then reaches with excruciating slowness and grasps the zipper of her jacket. She pulls it down, every pop of the links unlatching unnaturally loud in Kara’s ears. Finally she stops, having exposed the upper portion of Kara’s outfit, and reaches out to run her fingers along the collar of her shirt.  Kara struggles to breathe in the thick of it, more so when Lena grasps gently at her shirt and doesn’t let go, giving it a small and affectionate tug.

“You’re right.” She murmurs. “It’s a good outfit. It’s very, ah,” Lena licks her lips. “Butch Barbara Walters.” 

Kara doesn’t know what to do with that sentiment, doesn’t know if she’s supposed to laugh or what exactly. She just knows that her whole body feels more existant, more dynamic that it has in years. There’s a layer of almost excruciating warmth humming just beneath her cold exterior, exacerbated when Lena moves her hand from her collar down her shoulder and along the length of her right arm, stopping at her wrist. She pauses for a moment, and then touches at the scarred skin that covers Kara’s thumb, rubs her own thumb over it, and moves to push up the hem of her jacket to reveal more mottled skin underneath. Kara doesn’t jerk away. 

“There was a fire at my house when I was little.” She answers a question unasked. “My parents and my aunt and uncle were inside, but I was in the backyard sleeping in a tent.”

“A tent?”

Kara smiles. “My dad took me up to Yosemite that summer and I was into camping. I wanted to sleep outside all the time. Anyway, I tried to get inside the house to help them, there was a window open in the kitchen and I just--stuck my arm in, trying to get in the house. I wasn’t thinking about it.”

“Did it hurt?”

“No.” Kara responds honestly, and then, “Only for a second. I guess once a burn is third degree, it destroys the nerves. My arm was all messed up though, it looked like when you char a steak on the grill. But I remember running down the block to get help from our neighbors, holding it to my chest, trying not to look at it. I could imagine what the pain would feel like and looking at it make it seem like it hurt.”

“Were your parents okay?”

“No.” Lena moves her hand away for a moment, readjusts, and then takes Kara’s palm into her own. She squeezes, firm and warm, and then it begins to trail back up her arm to the collar of her shirt. Kara feels like she knows this story now by heart, knows how people react to the image of her running down a dark street cradling her blackened arm against her pajama top (It was a Death Cab for Cutie t-shirt, too big, purchased during a very short-lived obsession that’d ended more or less on that night, covered in blood and pus). 

“You were a really, really brave kid.” Lena says with remarkable clarity, taking Kara by surprise. Her palm, warm and dry, cups Kara’s chin and she moves her face into it, rooting, without a second thought. Lena has a small smile on her face, as if she’s thought of something clever just in that moment. “That makes a lot of sense, actually.”

Kara breathes, then says nothing else. They lay like that for a moment, studying each other’s faces. Lena’s pupils are huge saucers but underneath Kara can see a sliver of vibrant blue-green, can see every freckle and spot on the smooth plane of her skin. “This is really nice. I can see why you like drugs so much.”

  
Lena laughs out loud into the night. “They definitely have a certain appeal.” She pauses for a moment, sucking on her teeth before adding. “It’s like, remember when you said that you feel lost in big groups of people? I feel that way too, except it’s pretty much all the time. But it doesn’t feel as bad when I’m drunk or high. Although I don’t feel like that right now, and I can’t tell if it’s the booze something else.”

Kara sucks in a breath and holds it. For a feverish second she imagines that the atoms in her lungs are pieces of this moment, the light of the house, that errant strand of Lena’s hair, the pale sliver of her eye, and that by holding her breath she gets to keep them there, close to her heart. Lena tilts her face in, nudges Kara’s nose with her own gently, it’s a move so delicate  that Kara feels like it could break her wide open. 

“Okay, time to break it up, lesbians!” It’s Albie’s voice, loud and harsh. Kara releases the breath all in one go. “Let’s get you two drunkards into an Uber, c’mon.”

It turns out to be an Uber Pool and Lena and Kara are crammed together in the backseat for the whole ride--typically 3 minutes, ground out into 20. Lena is against the driver’s side window, face pressed into the glass, and Kara watches fragments of street lights decorating her face and hair. They’re close enough that their knees brush every time the car jostles and Lena leaves her hand resting casually between their thighs for a moment, then begins to gently rub against the denim Kara’s jeans with a knuckle.

It’s devastating. Kara hasn’t found room in herself since her parents died to have feelings like this, at first too consumed with the simple act of getting out of bed in the morning, and then being able to connect with people on a basic level, to love her foster family. If Kara’s life is a movie, the feeling she’s having can only be really described in separate, disparate images: a meteor flashing across the night sky, a man hitting a home run and dropping his bat, with a springy bounce, onto the turf, flowers blooming together, all at once, the profile of Lena Luthor’s face as she stares out onto the frozen streets of their campus. 

When they arrive back at their dorm, Lena crawls into bed immediately, leaving on the night’s makeup as well as all of her clothes. Kara has the wherewithal to pull off her shoes for her, smiling as Lena murmurs and shifts around on the bed. For herself, Kara has a large glass of water, drinks it sitting on the edge of her bed in the dark of her room. She sobers by degrees, itches to call Alex, but in the end lies down on top of her sheets, rubbing a hand over her chest, where her heart is, and feeling the comforting rhythm of it’s beat. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter; everybody has more secrets than they know what to do with, including Kara
> 
> Tumblr is @seabisuits-us


	3. three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We live in the middle of the woods. There’s nothing out there but bears, hill people, and Jerry Burdos.”

 

“Alex, how did you know you were gay?” The banging around in the kitchen stops briefly. Kara can’t see from the living room, but she can imagine what Alex looks like when she’s being caught off guard by something. It only lasts for a beat before she can hear the distinct noise of the microwave shutting and then humming to life. Alex’s head pokes into the living room a moment later.

“Why do you ask?”

“Just a question.”

“A question that I’ve answered before.” Leaning against the doorway, arms crossed, Alex regards Kara with a suspect look on her face. “I saw Kate Winslet’s boobs in _Titanic_ and didn’t stop sweating for a week.”

“Right. I guess I forgot.” Kara is laying on her back, hands on her stomach and staring contemplatively at the ceiling. She hears Alex move across the room, then feels her lift her legs up to make space on the couch and settle them back down on her lap.

“Kara,” She says, drawing the word out lowly. “Are you having a feeling?” When Kara doesn’t respond right away she pokes her lightly in the ribs, causing her to squeal and squirm away. “For a girl?”

Somewhere in the background, the microwave timer goes off. Kara sighs. “Maybe a feeling or two, yeah. It’s just...confusing.”

“Because it’s a girl?”

“Because I haven’t had these kinds of feelings for anybody in a long time.”

“Well, you dated that boy for a while your senior year.” Alex supplies unhelpfully. The microwave beeps again and she rolls her eyes, standing up and padding out of sight for a moment before returning and resuming her position with a steaming bag of popcorn.

“I think I just needed something to do. This is different.”

“Have you talked to Dr. Newbold about it? She said that she does Skype sessions now, right?”

“I haven’t seen Dr. Newbold since I left for college.” Kara rolls her head to look at Alex, tugging a little on the hem of her shirt. “I’ve been feeling really good lately. I think I might be over needing therapy.” Her sister looks back at her, thoroughly unconvinced, but says nothing. “Plus, don’t you think it’s stupid to skype your therapist about relationship problems? _”_

“Kara, most of your entire family died pretty much right as you hit puberty and now you’re having confusing, gay, romantic feelings for the first time as an adult woman.” Alex stuffs her face with popcorn. “If I were your therapist I’d want to talk that one out with you, yeah.”

“Well, when you put it like that.” Kara quips dryly, reaching to grab the remote and queue up their movie. Alex gives her socked foot a squeeze and when Kara looks up, she’s smiling softly.

“You know I’m just giving you a hard time, right? You should talk to Dr. Newbold any time you’re having an issue. There’s no shame in going to therapy, Kar.”

Looking resolutely at the TV screen, Kara says: “I know.” But the words feel uneasy coming out of her mouth.

“You could also talk to the girl about it, too. Maybe she’s having similar feelings?”

“Unlikely. She has a boyfriend.

“Yeesh. That’s lonely road to go down, Kar.”

“I know, I know.” Kara sighs and snuggles deeper into the couch as the movie credits begin to play on the TV. “It’s just, we hung out the other night and there was a moment where I thought—maybe?” She blinks and sees Lena’s finger rubbing against the denim of her jeans, blinks again and sees her hand tugging affectionately on the collar of her shirt. “But I don’t know.”

“Take it from me, this kind of thing never works out well, even if she is interested. And it’s not fair to whoever her boyfriend is...and you know how much it pains me to say that, I hate defending men, but it’s true. Maybe if you’re interested in dating you could check out the QSU or try Tinder or something.”

“Yeah.” Kara’s voice is light and noncommittal. She’s not sure if she’s interested in dating so much as interested in Lena. “That’s a good idea.”

“Speaking of dates, what should I wear on mine with Officer Sawyer this weekend?”

“I don’t know. Have you considered a reflector best?”

“I should smother you with this pillow.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

 

\\\\\

 

Kara considers texting Dr. Newbold to set up an appointment for the rest of the night and most of the next day. She even drafts out a few messages, almost hits send, and then delays herself. A small voice in the back of her head asks her if this isn’t something that she can sort out herself—after all, it’s been almost 6 years since her parents died, and nearly a full year since she’d needed any kind of counseling. She’s fine.

She’s probably fine.

Certain things, certain exacerbating factors, keep the idea of contacting Dr. Newbold in the back of her mind. For starters, it’s been days since the party and Lena’s been distant.  Not overtly distant but in smaller, sadder ways; their chats in the dorm have all but stopped, although Kara can’t really tell if it’s her or a test-induced adderall spiral on Lena’s part. She’s out most of the time she isn’t studying, anyway, and she hasn’t extended even a cursory invite. Not that she’s been hoping.

Well, maybe she has. A little bit. In her mind, Kara replays the night in question again and again, reaching through a hazy fog of memories to find—what, exactly, she isn’t sure. Had she said something wrong? Done something to embarrass herself? Maggie had recently made the entire campus safety team submit to wearing large, puffy, bright orange bomber jackets covered in reflective tape with _campus safety_ embossed across the back. Kara’s even said Danvers on it, like a sports player. She’d worn it back to the dorm the first day she got it, secretly anticipating Lena’s ribbing, but hadn’t even received a cursory glance.

That’s what she’s thinking about as she puts on the very same jacket and prepares to leave for her night shift. Lena is in her peripheral as she pulls on her favorite knit hat, the one Eliza made for her as a Hanukkah gift last year with her initials on it. She’s working through something on her laptop, one knee jiggling, plowing through a bag of Jolly Ranchers.

“I’m headed out for my shift now.” Kara says, slinging her backpack over one shoulder. When Lena doesn’t respond, she frowns and tries again. “I’ll see you when I get home?”

This time, Lena does turn around, if only to flash Kara with a disinterested half-smile. Far from being comforting, it makes Kara’s heart sink. “I’m going out tonight. But maybe.” Then she turns back around and returns her focus to the computer, just like that.

The trudge from her dorm to the campus safety building feels longer than usual. The ground is covered in a frozen-top layer of late season snow and the air has a harsh snap that bites at her cheeks and nose. Kara spends most of it lost in a train of circular thought, about Lena, about Dr. Newbold, about her conversation with Alex. By the time she reaches the building and steps inside, kicking the snow off her shoes at the front entrance, her brain is steeped in a deep fog.

Maggie is waiting for her in her office, keys to the Tipsy Taxi laying out on her desk. “Hey buddy.” She greets over the top of a styrofoam cup of coffee. “Looking good in that jacket.”

Kara squints at her as she snags the keys from the desk and moves into the staff kitchenette off her office without a word. She fills the electric kettle and throws it on, waiting with her arms crossed. Maggie joins her less than a moment later.

“What bee got in your bonnet?”

“I’m fine.” Kara huffs and then, realizing that that wasn’t the question, says. “There’s no bee. And no bonnet. I’m just not looking forward to the late shift.”

“Liar. You love Friday nights.” Maggie points out. “Is this because I’m going on a date with your sister tomorrow?” The kettle whistles sharply in the background and Kara rolls her eyes without comment, digging around the upper cabinets. “It’s the one to your left.”

She opens it and, sure enough, there's a stash of her favorite hot cocoa—the kind with little mini marshmallows. She snags them down and quickly fixes herself a drink in a styrofoam takeaway cup, smashing on the lid so harshly she almost crumples the whole thing. Maggie watches in the background, silent, nursing her own hot drink contemplatively.

“Okay, well I’m gonna,” Kara holds the keys up and shakes them, heading to move by Maggie. She’s stopped by a hand on her shoulder and looks up to see her boss regarding her kindly, brows furrowed.

“Look, Kara, whatever’s going on--if it’s Alex, just tell me and I’ll cancel, it’s really not worth making you uncomfortable.”

“It’s not Alex. I wouldn’t have given her your number if it were.”

Maggie rubs the back of her head with a free hand. “Shit, I’m not good at this. It’s just--whatever it is, I just wanted to say I see myself a little as your mentor, as well as your boss, and you should know my door is always open to you. For anything. To talk, or...”

Kara’s chin is tilted down to her chest and she’s blinking back inexplicable, shameful tears. Her hand grips reflexively at the strap of her backpack, adjusting it slightly. “Thanks, Maggie.” She says, wiping furiously at her eyes and sniffing. “But I gotta go.”

Making a beeline out to the parking lot behind the campus safety building, the first thing that Kara notices is that the Tipsy Taxi has been adorned with construction paper hearts and streamers. After doing some mental math she realizes that it is, in fact, a few days short of Valentine’s day. In a moment of childish frustration, she kicks the tire of the golf cart with the toe of her boot. Far from making her feel better, she's instantly regretful. "Sorry, friend." She murmurs as she runs a hand over the roof. "You didn't deserve that."

///

The night has been slow, unusually so. In the whole 4 hours she’s been driving, Kara has only picked up a few people, and even had time to stop by the office again for a refill of hot chocolate. She’s currently balancing the cup between her knees, heat fan plugged into the vent and blowing warm air onto her face, squinting against the wind. It’s a good thing the cart only goes about 5 miles per hour, as the roads are a little slick and there’s a heavy fog settled over the campus. If it weren’t for the lights and the parties going on, she likely wouldn’t be able to make out a thing in front of her.

It takes five loops around Greek Row for her to realize that she’s looking out for the familiar cut of Lena’s figure on the front lawn of Delta Chi or Pi Lam. Kara has to talk herself out of texting her and seeing if she wants a ride several times, hearing Alex’s voice in her head telling her _it’s a lonely road to go down, Kar._ On her sixth loop, she does see two familiar figures waiting to flag her down—although not who she was expecting.

“Hello beautiful.” Albie sing-songs as her and Maeve shuffle into the back row of seats. They both have seltzer cans full of something, and if the purplish tint to their chapped lips is any indication it’s probably wine. “Long time no see.”

“Hi Albie. Hi Maeve.” Kara turns over the back of the front seat and smiles shyly. “Where you guys headed?”

“Sherman Hall, if you don’t mind.”

“Another party?”

“You bet. Every freak alive is at Delta tonight so we bailed early.”

There’s a question about Lena’s whereabouts on the tip of Kara’s tongue that she doesn’t vocalize. Her phone feels heavy in the front pocket of her pants. She dampens the urge by fiddling with the heat fan and asking, “Do you guys need to stop anywhere before Sherman?”

“Does this bus go to 7/11?” Maeve pipes up. “I need smokes.”

Kara waits leaning against the cart while Albie and Maeve do their business in the shop, gratefully accepting a new hot chocolate when they re-emerge. She takes a sip and immediately grimaces.

“Albie,” She says, “This is full of whiskey.”

“You’re welcome.” Albie mutters around the filter of a cigarette. Kara wants to ask if she knows that the whole point of the Tipsy Taxi is to prevent drunk driving, but thinks better of it. Now that the whiskey has settled in the bottom of her stomach, she mostly just feels a little warmer. “How’s your investigation going, Nancy Drew? Have you spoken to Mike yet?”

“No.” Kara admits, steering them down the mostly empty one-way streets of campus. “I tried to look him up in the student directory, but he’s not answering my emails.”

“Doesn’t surprise me. You know he works at Dirty Frank’s, right?”

“Oh really?” Kara tries her best to sound like she knows what and where that is.

“Yeah. Most weekends he’s there all night—if you want to get in touch with him, that’s your best bet.” They’re zeroing I’m in Sherman Hall now, and Kara pulls the cart to a puttering stop in front of the building. Neither Maeve or Albie make a move to get out of their seats right away, seemingly content to finish their cigarettes sitting in companionable silence.

“We miss seeing you around.” Albie says finally. “You should come out tomorrow, if you’re not working.”

“I miss you guys too.” Kara admits. She hasn’t turned around to face them, remains looking straight at the foggy road ahead. “But I’m not sure if Lena wants me to come to anymore parties.”

“Whatever. Lena can S my D. You’re our friend, too.” For the second time that night, Kara’s heart seizes followed by the feeling the salty warmth of tears on her cheeks. She’s beginning to wonder if she might be in the throes of an actual emotional breakdown. Her mind drifts over to the many drafted texts to Dr. Newbold saved on her phone.

“Do you know where she is tonight?” Kara asks, and immediately regrets it. Albie and Maeve are silent in the backseat.

“She’s spending the night at Pi Lam.” Maeve says, sounding regretful. Kara feels her heart fall into her stomach fall into her feet. She definitely shouldn’t have opened her mouth.

“Oh.”

“She got a little too fucked up to hang, is the thing.” Albie interjects. “I keep telling her not to mix stuff. Anyway, we gotta go, Kara. The party calls.”

As if choreographed, they flick their cigarette butts out of the cab and lean forward, each wrapping an arm around Kara’s shoulders and pressing a big kiss to either cheek. It leaves Kara’s glasses akimbo and a shocked smile on her face.

She watches them until they safely enter the building before she pulls away, taking another stiff drink out of her hot cocoa. It goes down a little easier this time.

 

///

 

Kara goes to bed that night in her dorm bed and wakes up in the forest. To the left of her are the woods, looking darker and vaster in the night than they ever have during the day. To the right is a man sitting in a different chair. When he turns his face to look at her, she notes with no surprise that it’s her father. Kara marvels quietly at his features. How she’s come to look so much like him and so little like her mother. The glasses she’d been fitted for the year prior have only completed the portrait: sandy blond hair, fair complexion, boxy jaw, and a cupid’s bow mouth. Her mother’s looks only slip through the cracks in a few places, including her eyes and the crinkle she gets between her eyebrows when she’s frustrated.

As she watches, her father finishes his burger in one last mighty bite and throws his paper plate into the roaring fire in front of them. He brushes the remaining crumbs onto his sweat pants, causing Kara to wince--at 13, there were still so many things about her dad that embarrass her. His stilted, awkward affect, his sometimes too-mannish and brusque mannerisms. Despite all of it, she is endlessly, privately pleased that he’s gotten the time off work to come camping with her. Not that she’ll ever admit it to him.

“Nothing like the great outdoors, right, Kar?”

Kara grunts in response, tucking her hands into the pocket of her hoodie and leaning forward, closer to the fire. Another private truth is that she loves camping, and that something about the stillness of the woods at night thrills and invigorates her, and makes her a little nervous. She tilts her eyes skyward, to the vast clearness of space, and breathes out a puff of mist into the ether. Even in June, the nighttime temperatures in Yosemite hover near the high 30’s.

“Stars are beautiful tonight.” She comments. Her father hums in the affirmative, also leaning back just slightly to get a better look at the sky. “Do you know any constellations?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Dad,” Kara begins slowly. “You literally build rocket ships for a living.”

“Ayup, I do.” Her father agrees, picking at something stuck in his teeth. He then reaches his hand up and points to an ephemeral point thousands of miles away. “That’s Orion’s Belt.”

“Is not. You’re making that up.”

“No, I’m serious.”

“It’s just a random line of stars.”

“Alright, alright, you got me.” He’s laughing, and that’s hers too. She could recognize the musical quality of it from a thousand miles away. “Nothing gets past you, Kara.” He turns to her then, smiling. His face is half illuminated by the firelight but she can still make out the healthy, ruddy color on his cheeks, and the darker shadow of his stubble. Her heart begins to brim with love against her best wishes. Like most things, it remains unspoken.

///

Kara wakes up disoriented. She’s fallen asleep in an unusual position, face-down in a puddle of her own drool. The dream is vivid enough that she’s left shaking off fragments of it as she moves back into consciousness—the flicker of the campfire in the corner of her eye, her father’s chuckle from somewhere far off. She scrubs a hand over her bare face and reaches blindly to her desk for her glasses. It’s too early still to wake up for good but she’s too mired in the memory to fall back asleep. Lena isn’t in her bed, so she must’ve really spent to night at Jack’s. The thought further sours Kara’s already tumultuous mood.

A quick trip to the bathroom to pee and fetch a cup of water later, she’s back under her blankets scrolling through her phone. This isn’t a new dream, she knows it well, and knows the impending despair that comes with it. She just needs to find something to fend it off, to make her feel less alone. She considers picking up the book Lena had given her, thinks better of it, and then finds herself unable to resist a moment later. It’s a good book. She can read it without thinking of Lena.

There’s a bookmark about halfway through that Kara plucks out and puts aside as she begins to tuck in. Behind her, predawn light filters in through the curtains and bathes the room in a blue-green glow. Kara only makes it two pages in before the tears begin to roll down her cheeks for the third time that night. This time she lets it happen, lets herself slip back under the blankets of her bed and feel bad for herself, crying into her pillow. She thinks of her father’s face smiling at her and feels it jagged in her gut. She hopes it won’t last until morning.

///

Kara wakes up for the second time to the sound of somebody in the bathroom. She sits up in bed quickly, knocking the book off and sending it clattering to the floor. Lena pokes her head out from the bathroom, toothbrush hanging from her mouth and a concerned look on her face.

“You okay?” She asks from around the toothbrush. It comes out sounding more like _you oway?_

“Yeah, just a little startled. What time is it?”

“10:30.” Lena says, and disappears back into the bathroom. Kara mutters under her breath and swings her legs off the bed to collect her book and indulge in a deep, long stretch. 6 hours of sleep isn’t bad, all things considered, but her body feels heavy and stagnant and her eyes sore.

When she re-emerges, Lena is looking extremely fresh and bright-eyed for somebody who was _too fucked up to hang_ the night before. She’s in her favorite oversized cardigan and leggings and barefoot. Kara notes the chipped red nail polish on her toes with a little bubble of affection.  “Heard you bumped into Albie and Maeve last night.” She says, and Kara’s body pings with surprise. This is the first conversation Lena has initiated with her since last weekend. She tries not to be overly pleased by it, but her stomach knots itself up just the same.

“Yeah, they needed a ride. I was nearby in a golf cart. Tale as old as time.”

“Right.” Lena comments wryly.

“I was surprised to not see you with them.”

“I was with Jack.” Without facing her, Lena gets on her bed and fishes around in her blankets for a book. It’s a paperback copy of _Middlesex,_ apparently well-loved judging by the creases and tears in the cover. “You know, my boyfriend?”

The words are icy and Kara can recognize that they’re intended to be painful even if Lena isn’t looking up at her to say them. Where normally there would be hurt Kara feels an acute sense of annoyance emerge. She purses her lips.

“Well, they were really helpful. And now I’m going to talk to Mike Elich tonight.” She tosses back. “Not that you care.”

Lena drops her book into her lap and looks up at her with elevated eyebrows. “Tell me you’re not going to Dirty Frank’s.”

“I am.”

“No, Kara, absolutely not. That place is a dive and Michael is a total creep. Have you ever even been to that part of town before?”

Kara wavers. She had been planning to just look it up on Google Maps and go from there. “No.”

“We live in the middle of the woods. There’s nothing out there but bears, hill people, and Jerry Burdos.”

“I’m not a child.” Kara asserts, indignant. “You can’t tell me where to go and where not to go.”

Lena is quiet at that, although her face is still crumpled in consternation. She looks conflicted by something. “Well, if you’re going I’m going with you.” She says with a sense of finality.

“I can’t believe this.” Kara laughs humorlessly. “First you’re super distant for no reason for an entire week and now you suddenly care about me going to a bar in the town that I _live_ in? Incredible.”

She regrets the words as soon as she says them. Lena’s face falls into a kind of ashamed expression, like a schoolgirl who’s been caught with her hand in a cookie jar. The wind gets knocked out of Kara all at once. “I’m sorry, that was mean.”

“But it was true.” Lena admits quietly. She’s not quite meeting Kara’s eye. “I’m just concerned that you’re getting in over your depth. And I know that area of town pretty well, at the very least people might hassle you less if I’m there.”

Kara mulls this over for a moment. Although they’re seated less than 15 feet away from each other on their respective beds, there’s a kind of perilous space between them. Kara thinks of the clear night sky over Yosemite, her and her father illiterate to the stars hanging over their heads.

“Okay, come with me.” Is what she says. When Lena looks up at her with a tentative smile what she sees is stars, exploding, dying, and being born out of gas behind a curtain of space.

\\\\\

Unfortunately, the thing that stands out about Dirty Frank’s at first glance is that it has no windows. It’s positioned at the end of the block, and it’s angular white walls extend back into the wooded area behind. There’s a mural on one side of a man in a red flannel strangling a bear.

“Is that Frank?” Kara asks dryly as they approach the entrance.

“I think so.” Lena replies, opening the heavy oak door for Kara to step in. “Not sure if he’s supposed to be the dude or the bear, though.”

The inside is dimly lit and outfitted mostly in dark wood booths with a large bar in the center. There are paper snowflakes hanging from the ceiling, what looks to be entries for a children’s art competition hanging against the far wall, and a sign written with sharpie on notebook paper racked above the bar that says _cash only._ It’s empty save for a few stragglers, a couple students and one or two residents. There’s only one bartender, who Kara takes to be Mike. He notices them as soon as they walk in.

“Hello, pretty ladies!”

“Cram it up your entire asshole, Michael.”

“Okay, Lena Luthor, not into it as usual. Noted.” Mike turns to direct his smile at Kara. “Who’s your hot friend?”

“You know what, this was a horrible idea.” Lena takes Kara by the elbow and begins to try and direct her back out the door. Kara resists, pulling her back with a glare. Lena rolls her eyes, but acquiesces and trails behind Kara to take a seat at the bar.

“My name’s Kara Danvers, I work for campus safety.”

Mike nods his head. “Cool, cool. You guys want anything to drink?”

“Vodka soda.” Lena responds readily. She rubs her forehead with her hand. “Make it a double.”

“Just a club soda is fine.”

“You the DD tonight?” Mike asks as he turns around to grab a vodka from the shelf behind him. His hand hovers over a bottle of Hawkeye to which Lena makes an indignant sound. Although his back is turned Kara can sense his eye roll as she crouches under the bar and produces what appears to be a pristine, unopened bottle of Belvedere. “You’re the only person who asks for this shit here, you know.”

“I’m not,” Kara responds. “The DD I mean. I’m here on business, actually.”

Mike’s eyebrows lift as he pours club soda into two glasses, adding a wedge of lime to Lena’s and placing them roughly on the bar.  “That’s a new one.” He says.

“I wanted to ask you about the vandalism at Pi Lam. And what happened to Dan during the night of the Dorm Bash.”

“Oh yeah.” Mike chuckles to himself. “That shit was funny. Dan had it coming to him, that’s for sure.”

“Well, somebody I spoke to mentioned that you have a connection to both of the incidents.”

“What, like I did it? Nah, dude. If I managed to spray paint that many dicks on the frat _and_ shave off Dan’s eyebrows you know I’d be out there bragging about it.  I’m basically ⅔ of the way expelled from school anyway.”

Kara considers this. She hasn’t thought about it from that angle before. “Well, you were the only person in the frat not to go to Portland that night. Who else would have known that you would all be gone?”

“What do you mean the only one not to go to Portland that night?” Mike’s been leaning on the bar, rubbing a pint glass with a dirty dishrag. His gaze flits from Kara’s face to Lena, who’s taking a long, indulgent sip of her drink. Kara notes with misplaced shock that it’s almost halfway gone. “Golden boy Jack got out of it too. Isn’t that right, Lena?” Lena sets her drink on the bar, looking more exhausted than anything else.

“Is that true, Lena?”

“It is.” She confirms. “But he wasn’t vandalizing the house that night.”

“Was he with you?”

“Not exactly.” She says cryptically.

“Then where—“

“It’s not anybody’s business.” Lena takes another sip of her drink and then moves to slide off the bar stool. “You’ll just have to take my word for it. I’m going to the restroom.”

Kara watches her as she pads off, disappearing behind one of the doors at the back of the hall. “Why wouldn’t she have mentioned that to me?” She wonders aloud.

“She’s crazy.” Mike supplies, beginning to work on a different pint glass. “You seem like you could do a lot better than her, anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

Mike shrugs. “I mean, she’s a hot mess. She’s in here like once a week with her friends cleaning the bathroom counter with her face. And anyway, even if she is interested in you, she’s probably just trying to get her pussy eaten once before she marries Jack and trades in coke for Xanax. But I mean, I guess I get it.” He pauses and looks up. “I’d fuck her too, if I thought it was worth the trouble.”

Kara has a brief and vivid fantasy of grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and slamming his face down into the bar. Her hand is gripped so tightly around her glass that her knuckles are a mottled white. She leans in, causing Mike to lean back slightly, startled.

“Don’t talk about her like that.” Her voice sounds flinty and desperate even to her own ears. “You don’t know anything about her.”

“I know more than you.” Mike says firmly. He throws his dishtowel down on the bar in front of her. “I feel bad for her though. That whole family is fucked up. Shitty apple doesn’t fall far from the shitty apple bush.”

Kara squints. “Mike, apples grow on trees.”

“Whatever.” At that moment, the door to the restroom opens and Lena walks out wiping her hands on her jeans. Kara’s face is still flushed with indignity and she gives her a puzzled look as she approaches the bar.

“What did he say to you?”

“Nothing.” Kara grumbles, looking at her lap. Mike throws his hands up defensively.

“Listen douche, if you said anything—“

“What did she just say? I said nothing to her. We were just talking.”

Lena looks between them for a moment, clearly not buying what they’re selling, then she grabs her jacket from under the bar and tugs it on. “Let’s go,” She murmurs to Kara gently. Kara nods and begins to pull on her own jacket,  watching as Lena grabs her drink from the bar and walks out drinking it, making hard eye contact with Mike the whole time.

“Those weren’t complementary!” He calls after them as they step out onto the cold streets. Kara’s head is swimming with many emotions, confusion being chief among them. They stand in the stoop of the bar for a moment as Lena fishes out a cigarette and lights it, blowing out smoke in one long, cathartic exhale.

“Why can’t you tell me where Jack was that night?”

“It’s private.” Lena isn’t looking at her, staring instead at some fixed point off in the distance. The hand that’s not holding cigarette is still clutched around her glass. She regards it, finishes it in one long gulp, and then sets it down next to her on the sidewalk.

“I don’t get it. If he wasn't doing something wrong, why won't you tell me?”

“Look, Kara, I—“ she licks her lips, eyes looking skyward for a brief moment before she turns to face Kara. “It’s not my story to tell. You’re just going to have to trust me that he didn’t have anything to do with it.”

Kara looks back at her and feels a soft kind of astonishment, looks at the glass of ice next to the black booties on her feet and follows the curves of her legs upward to where they disappear under the line of her jacket. She thinks about what it would be like to put her hands there, squeeze her thighs and mouth at the sharp cut of her collarbone. There’s the desire in her to roughly grab and pull at Lena’s parka, her cardigan, the shirt she’s wearing underneath. Kara wonders if this is what it means to like somebody, to constantly want to peel back their layers until there’s nothing left, them to consume what’s exposed with your hands and mouth.

“I do trust you. I’m just confused.”

Lena laughs. “That makes two of us.” Her expression softens, then. She flicks her cigarette away and takes a step closer to Kara, moving gracefully into her space. “I’m sorry about earlier. And about this week, I know I’ve been a total bitch. I just—I don’t really know how to act around you.” As far as admissions go, it’s a soft one, and if Kara wasn’t standing so close she might not have even heard it. She lets the words wash over her and settle in the bottom of her stomach, the tips of her fingers.

“That makes two of us.” She murmurs, and Lena smiles brilliantly.

“But, I hope we can move past it and be friends? Maybe?”

“I’d really like to be your friend, Lena.” Kara breathes.

Lena takes one more large step into her space and then wraps her arms around Kara in a firm embrace. Kara stands still for a moment, shocked, before gradually sinking into the warmth of Lena’s chest. She wraps her arms around Lena’s middle and releases a tiny sigh at how soft she is, how pliant. Lena’s face is buried in the crook of her neck, every breath tickling the skin there. Kara feels one of her hands move to touch, briefly, the bare skin exposed at the base of her neck and shivers.

A car passes by and briefly illuminates their spot on the sidewalk, causing Lena to look up but not pull away completely. She doesn’t remove her arms from around Kara’s shoulders and Kara doesn’t make any effort to move hers, either. The longer they stand like like that, folded together, the more the tone shifts from a friendly act of gratitude to something thicker. It makes Kara feel warm all over, but the feeling is tainted by a distinctly Alex-like voice in her head reminding her that Lena has a boyfriend.

 _“_ Maybe we should head back.” Kara suggests in a soft voice.

“I was actually going to head to Pi Lam after this.” Lena comments. “They’re having a party to celebrate all of their windows getting fixed.”

“Is everything just an excuse to have a party with you guys?”

“Maybe.” There's a pause in which neither of them attempt to move out of their position, still. “You should come.”

It feels like a bad idea for reasons Kara can’t put a name to, or doesn’t want to. That Alex voice in her head is telling her firmly to go home and text her therapist. “Sure,” She says instead. “Sounds fun.”

///

The house is already thrumming with music when they arrive. Kara follows Lena’s lead, bypassing a boy in a Hawaiian shirt asking for $5 at the entrance and shucking her outer shell soon thereafter. The frat is much messier than the Delta Chi house had been, with layers of furniture and trash pushed up against the wall to make room for new furniture and new trash. There’s a half-eaten sheet cake sitting in the living room decorated to look like a window that people appear to be eating straight off the platter with forks and a few half-hearted streamers hung around the space.

Without the buffer of alcohol and Albie, Kara has a familiar feeling of unease. Luckily, Lena seems in her element and she weaves them through the crowd elegantly greeting people as she goes along. Some people Kara recognizes from the party last weekend, some that are complete strangers. Lena moves with a sense of direction and Kara assumes that she knows where they’re going, especially when she puts a hand on the small of Kara’s back to help guide her through the crowd.

It becomes apparent that the kitchen is their ultimate destination. Jack’s there with another man, standing close together, nursing beers and laughing at something on the boy’s phone. He looks up before Lena has the opportunity to say his name, affectionate smile already fixed on his face, and steps away from the other boy. They step into each other’s arms and Lena plants an affectionate kiss onto the corner of his mouth, fluffing the back of his hair with a free hand.

Kara can still feel her lower back burning with her touch and resists the urge to look away.

“Hey Lena, hey Kara.” Jack says, dopey smile still on his face. “Glad you guys to make it. Kara, have you met Gordy?” He gestures over to the boy he’d been conferring with earlier, still standing off to the side. He’s smiling like somebody who’s uncomfortable but trying to play along for the sake of saving face. They exchange pleasantries and Jack turns his attention back to Lena.

“Hey, handsome.” She coos. “Do you guys have anything better here than Natty Ice?”

Jack smiles at her, then pivots out of her arms and to the fridge. Lena stands behind him while he thumbs through its contents, hand tangled in the short hairs on the back of his head. She looks so content, so loving that Kara has a horrible feeling or ever having construed their previous interaction as romantic. Friends hug each other sometimes, she supposes, and sometimes those hugs are long and probably intimate. It’s shameful that she’d over thought otherwise.

“Nothing special.” Jack says finally, rising from the fridge and shutting it. “Everything good is in my room, I think.”

Lena flashes a smile at Kara. “Let's go upstairs and check.” Before she can react Lena reaches out and takes her hand, beginning to lead her through the crowd that’s alive with other people’s bodies. Kara tries to take her focus off the electric feeling of Lena’s fingers tangled in hers, even as her line of sight is focused on the back of her head, the angle of her arm stretched behind her, and her energy as she clears a path for them through the living room. Friends hold other friend’s hands sometimes, too, she’s seen Alex do it, seen Albie and Maeve do it. Her body, a reliable traitor, flushes hot despite the logic of it.

The stairs are emptier than the living room, and the upstairs hallway even emptier. It seems to go on forever, doors and doors next to each other, each with a sign designating who’s room it is. Kara reads them each as they move past in an effort to try and not think too much about the fact that Lena hasn’t let go of her hand. _Brandon and Joel, Kyle and Guy, Amir and Jacob,_ and finally, near the end of the hall, _Jack and Guillermo._ Lena stops at this one, smiles over her shoulder, drops Kara’s hand, and enters the room.

When the light flashes on, Kara sees the room is large--probably twice the size of Lena and Kara’s dorm. It’s sparsely decorated, with two full-sized beds sitting on box springs against each opposite wall, two desks, and a mini fridge. There’s also a TV sitting on the floor surrounded by various gaming systems and a bean bag chair. While she’s taking in her surroundings, Lena is busy bent over the mini fridge rustling for something to make. Kara’s gaze moves from the gaming set up to Lena, faced with a head-on view of her ass as she rummages, she blushes and looks down at her shoes.

Finally, after what feels like an eternity, Lena straightens up with what looks like a pint of gin and a half-full bottle of tonic. “Shut the door.” She says kindly, setting the goods on the table and beginning to mix them into two cups. “We don’t want anybody else knowing Jack has stuff in here. They’re vultures.”  
Somewhat dazed, Kara shuts the door and continues to stand awkwardly in the threshold. Lena looks up again, screwing the cap back on the gin. “You okay?”

“Yeah!” Kara laughs maniacally and recognizes that it’s about three octaves too high. She pushes her glasses up her nose with the back of one hand. “Totally. I’m totally fine and normal.”

“You just seem a little nervous.” Lena says. She finishes the drinks with a mix and moves toward Kara. “You can sit on Jack’s bed, if you want. It’s the one right next to you.”

Kara turns her head and sees one of the mattresses, outfitted with messy red flannel sheets. “We’re not going back to the party?”

Lena looks suddenly shy. “I thought we could stay up here and talk.” She admits. “If you wanted that. If not, we could totally go back downstairs.”

It is, actually, all Kara wants. She wants it so bad that her desire feels like a second person trapped inside her mortal coil trying to escape via her mouth. But then there’s that Alex-like voice in her brain telling her that Lena has a _boyfriend,_ who she kisses and calls handsome and scratches the back of his head when he’s picking around the fridge. Kara’s stomach churns with it all; the sting of jealousy, the headiness of her appetite.

She takes the cup from Lena and sits next to her on the bottom edge of the bed. Although there’s plenty of room, they crowd together, thighs pressed against each other, knees touching. They quietly drink from their cups, listening to the muffled sound of music from the next room. Kara has the inexplicable feeling that the space that existed between them in the dorm room that morning was closing with alarming rapidity and that they’re on the precipice of something. What, she can’t say.

Lena looks at her after a minute, still shy-seeming, upper lip wet with her last sip of alcohol. “Can I ask you something?”

Kara’s heart is hammering in her chest. “Sure, anything.”

“Can you at least tell me what you and Mike were talking about in there before I interrupted you?”

Kara wrinkles her nose. “He was saying something awful about you. I couldn’t stand it. I wanted to punch him.” She toes the ground beneath her. “I didn’t, of course, but I wanted to.”

The look Lena is giving her is resting somewhere between astonishment and realization. Her cheeks are a lovely pink, lips slightly parted, eyebrows raised. Her eyes are flicking around, scanning Kara’s face for—something. “You stood up for me.” It’s not a question exactly, but there’s something searching about the way she says it.

“Of course I did.” Kara responds as if it’s a no-brainer. It is a no-brainer. “I mean, yeah, of course I did.” She repeats it again because Lena is staring at her, seemingly uncomprehending. Her eyes are dark and there’s something about her expression, and the way she’s sitting, that sends Kara back into a nervous spiral. Slowly, methodically, she watches as Lena sets her cup down by her feet. She then reaches out and takes Kara’s own cup from her, and Kara, confused, can only let it happen. Lena sets Kara’s cup on the floor next to her own and then without a moment of hesitation reaches forward and takes Kara’s glasses, slipping them off her nose. She sets those next to the cup.

“Hey, Lena, uh, not to be weird or anything but what are you doin--” The rest of Kara’s sentence is swallowed up by the firm press of Lena’s lips against her own. The kiss happens so quickly, with so little preamble, that for a moment Kara thinks it must be one of her more elaborate fantasies. The hot feeling of her mouth, the smell of her soap, the distant sound of music still playing--it must be a dream.

Then, Lena pulls back, fixes her with an intense look, and leans in again at a different angle. They kiss like that for a moment, close-mouthed and chase, before her lips part and she licks into Kara’s mouth. One hand cups her neck, the other lays flat against her breastbone, and Kara knows it’s real. Alex’s voice is there again, but it’s different this time. It’s the Alex who’d said to Kara that she should try to loosen up and enjoy college a little bit. It’s the Alex that tells her that she deserves to have a little fun.

For the first time that day, Kara listens. She reaches her hand to tangle her fingers in Lena’s hair, delights in the soft noise she makes. There’s pressure on her chest and she realizes that Lena is trying to guide her down to lay on the bed. She goes willingly, back hitting the tangled sheets, pulling Lena’s soft weight down on top of her. Lena shifts so that her hips are fitted squarely between Kara’s thighs and Kara makes a small, embarrassing noise at the sensation of it. This only seems to spur Lena on and she presses forward with her hips, swallowing down Kara’s ensuing moan into her mouth.

There’s a haze around Kara’s thoughts but she tries to hang onto whatever various threads of reality still surround her. There’s the feeling of the socked heel of her foot rubbing against the back of Lena’s calf, toes absent-mindedly flexing and relaxing, the touch of fabric on her her fingers, and the wet noise of their lips moving against each other. When Lena pulls back for more than a second she tries to follow her, bereft with the loss, and opens her eyes for the first time to see the darker-haired woman looking down at her. Her eyes are blown out, not unlike that night on the lawn, and her lips are already kiss-swollen.

“You’ve got no idea how long I’ve wanted to do this,” Lena murmurs, then takes Kara’s hand from her back and moves it around, under the fabric of her shirt. Her skin is soft and vital and Kara tries not to do something embarrassing like cry again or moan when she feels Lena guide her hand directly under her breast.

She’s not wearing a bra--which, of course, she never wears a bra, why on earth would she now? Then Lena’s mouth is back on her, more urgent, and her hips are jogging and Kara is breathing raggedly and feeling more and more compelled to move her hand up just an inch, just to see what it might feel like.

Her fingers brush over the curve of Lena’s breast and then, with confidence Kara didn’t know she possessed, she brushes a thumb over her nipple and feels it already hard under her touch. Lena emits a keening, desperate kind of sound and tears her mouth away from Kara’s, moving it to first suck on the lobe of her ear then down to the exposed curve of her neck. Her hand, the one that’s not holding her up, moves between their bodies and lands immediately at the top of Kara’s jeans, tugging them a little. Kara hardly notices. She’s too busy focusing on steadying her breath and keeping her movements under control, not trying to embarrass herself--this is the first time she’s done anything like it and she desperately doesn’t want that to show to Lena.

She nearly misses the pop of her jeans button coming undone and the tug of her zipper as Lena pulls it down. It’s only when Lena’s hand slips into her pants to cup her over her underwear, rubbing experimentally up and down, that she snaps back to reality. The sheets that she’s squirming in are Jack’s sheets, that sharp smell is probably his cologne. She opens her eyes, tilts her head to the side, and sees the things strewn to the left of Jack’s bed--Lena’s shirt, a book, a pair of socks.

Her hand shoots down in an instant and grabs Lena’s wrist. The other woman pulls her head up from where she’s been working on sucking a hickey onto Kara’s collarbone and looks back at her, dazed.

“Is everything okay?”

“No, I’m--” Kara takes a deep breath and tries to steady herself. The next words that leave her mouth come out in kind of a whisper. “Lena, what about your boyfriend?”

Lena furrows her brow. “My who?”

Behind them, there’s the sound of the door hitting the wall and a masculine yelp of surprise. Kara sits up so quickly that she almost rolls Lena onto the floor and sees Winn, hand over his eyes and face beet red.

“Oh my god.” Kara half-says, half-shouts.

“It’s cool, it’s cool.” Winn says quickly. “It’s totally fine. I totally...support gay...marriage.”

“Winn!”

“What the fuck?”

“I'm sorry, I'm nervous! Kara, Officer Sawyer needs to see you.”

  
“See me--Winn, you can uncover your eyes we’re not naked--what does she need to see me about?” Kara is moving off the bed, trying her hardest not to look back at Lena. She reaches down onto the floor to retrieve her glasses, fitting them back onto her face. Winn uncovers his eyes, looks at Kara, and immediately covers them again. Kara realizes belatedly how messy she must look.

“She just said it had something to do with that golf cart you drive. Said she couldn’t get ahold of you on your phone.” Accordingly, when she looks at her phone Kara sees she has 13 missed calls from Maggie Sawyer. She does look back at Lena then, and regrets it immediately. She looks ruined, hair messy, lips swollen, shirt jerked out of place. It makes Kara want to kick Winn out of the room and start again right from where they left off.

“Go,” Lena sighs. “We’ll talk when you get back to the dorm.”

Kara nods and gets up, following Winn out of the room and watching him fall back against the door once he’s shut it, looking shocked.

“Holy shit, you slut!” He whisper yells. Kara punches him on the shoulder. “You’re off the hook for now due to a mysterious crisis, but you’d better believe tomorrow you’re getting into it. Also, you might wanna XYZ.”

Kara frowns. “What?”

“Examine your zipper, girl, c’mon.” Kara looks down, finds her pants still gaping wide open, and hurriedly rights them. Winn is already halfway down the staircase when she looks up.

“Winn, hold on a sec,” She yells after him, jerking her phone out of her pocket. “I gotta text my therapist."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter, everybody goes to therapy together. 
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> just kidding, they all continue not communicating w/ comical divedends. see you then!


	4. four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Actually, there’s a pretty funny picture of her as a kid giving George W. Bush the stink eye in that house. I think that’s what made the impression.”

Maggie is waiting for them out front of the campus safety building when they arrive, a shivering figure in a blue dress and high heels illuminated by a street light. She doesn’t look happy. Kara picks up her pace into a light jog, leaving Winn trailing behind her in her haste.

“Where were you?” Maggie hisses once she’s in earshot. “I called you like 20 times.” She’s already on the move, leading Kara and Winn around the side of the building to the alley parking lot where they keep the golf cart.

“I’m sorry, I was at a party.” Kara reasons, trying her best to keep up with Maggie’s brisk pace. “I thought Amy was supposed to be on late duty tonight.”

“She was. But when she got here to pick it up we found this.”  When they finally emerge into the parking lot where the Tipsy Taxi is parked, Kara’s jaw drops open and she sputters fruitlessly for a moment, looking between Maggie, Winn, and the scene in front of her. She holds her arms out, gesturing, then brings them up to run through her hair. Maggie has a permanent-set frown on her face and Winn an expression of muted surprise.

“What the heck?”

“My sentiments exactly.” Maggie grumbles, crossing her arms. In front of them, the golf cart sits, spray painted almost completely in obscene language and symbols and missing it’s two front tires. Something occurs to Kara in that moment.

“Wait, what are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be on a date with Alex?”

“I am.” Maggie deadpans. On cue, behind them, a car window rolls down and a disgruntled looking Alex pokes her head out. “But Amy freaked out and called me when she saw the golf cart, so here we are. Looks like whoever your vandal is they got wise to you asking around and weren’t happy about it.”

“Unbelievable.” She sighs, shaking her head.

“Well, lucky for you,” Maggie comments, “This place is pretty much riddled with security cameras. So whoever it is they’re going to be enjoying their last weekend of freedom.”

“Dang. Sucks for them.” Kara and Maggie both turn around to look at Winn with matching expressions of confusion. Maggie opens her mouth, closes it, then pinches the bridge of her nose.

“You’re still here?”

“You, uh, called me—“

“Whatever, okay, Monday morning we’ll reconvene and get our peep.” Maggie declares. “I don’t think anything else is getting solved tonight.”

Kara continues to take in the mess of the parking lot and inwardly agrees. Kara loved that golf cart, piece of shit that it may have been—it had perfectly squishy seats and lots of legroom in the front. A genuine feeling of sadness wells up in her chest.

“Kara!” Alex’s voice snaps her back in reality. She’s leaning out of the window of her car still, and Maggie’s begun to gravitate back toward it. “Are you going back to the dorm?”

Kara makes the mistake of glancing at Winn, who has to use his hand to physically block the shit-eating grin on his face. She thinks about Lena—is she still at Pi Lam? Was she back at the dorm, in her bed, thinking about Kara? Had she spoken to Jack? She must have, by now,  either gone downstairs to find him or remained in his bed until he came to find her. Kara’s stomach turns.

“Can I come home with you?” She calls. Turning to face Winn briefly, she reaches out to squeeze his hand goodbye with a smile and mouths _thank you_. When she turns to move away he hangs on for the briefest of seconds.

“Kara, I’m really sorry.” He murmurs. “This sucks.”

“It’s okay, it’s not your fault.”

Winn nods, but his face is cloudy. “Hey, I was serious about what I said earlier. I want all the details tomorrow.”

Kara smiles. “Deal.” With one final squeeze, she breaks away and half-jogs over to the car where Alex is waiting for her expectantly. When she peers in the window, she can clearly see that her sister is also wearing a nice dress and seems to have kicked her heels into the passenger seat to drive. “So, can I come home with you?”

Alex flounders for a moment and Maggie edges nearer to the car, looking amused. “Remember when we were younger and we made a promise as new sisters to always tell each other everything and not lie?”

Kara nods. “Of course.”

“Well, my truth is I’m trying to get laid tonight—don’t gag, Jesus—and I already invited Maggie over.”

“Alex.” Kara whispers urgently. “Under normal circumstances that would be no problem but I’m kind of desperate, here.”

Alex’s brow furrows in concern. She glances furtively to the left to make sure Maggie isn’t listening too closely. “Is everything okay?” Her hand shoots out and she feels Kara’s forehead. “Has somebody been hurting you? Who do I need to brandish my gun at?” She proceeds to pat Kara over most of her face, then moves down to her parka which she tugs to the side with a sharp gasp. “Holy shit is that a hickey?”

Kara pinkens from her hairline down to her chest. She yanks her jacket back into place and swats Alex’s hand away. “Alex, can we please talk about this in the morning? It’s late and I just want to go to bed.”

Kara can tell when her sister is thinking, it’s a skill she’s possessed since she first came to live with the Danvers. In this instance, Alex is thinking so loudly that Kara’s surprised her head hasn’t popped off her shoulders like a balloon. “Okay.” Alex mutters. “But this conversation isn’t over.” Relieved, Kara runs around the car only to be stopped in her tracks by Alex’s voice.

“Maggie is still coming over, though. I’m not driving all the way to Monmouth this late at night.”

Maggie ends up in the back seat while Kara gets shotgun. Alex peels out of the alley, rolling past Winn. He’s on his phone and doesn’t look up as they cruise beside him and onto the empty side street off of the campus safety building. The car is so tensely quiet that it almost becomes noisy in that way—Kara can still hear Alex thinking and Maggie is clearly mired in some internal battle of her own.

From the side street they pull onto another,  and then another, then the main highway, which in Oregon is a two lane road winding through a thick evergreen forest. Kara watches Alex’s headlights splash into the otherworldly darkness, then turns to to her.

“Did you guys have a good date?” Alex doesn’t respond for a minute. Her face slowly breaks into a barely contained smile. In the back seat Maggie starts to chuckle, then Kara is laughing too, and Alex finally breaks down, taking one hand off the steering wheel to wipe at her eyes. They laugh like that for a long time, solid and cathartic, speeding down the empty highway ahead.

 

///

 

Kara sits on Alex’s bed while Alex herself makes Maggie a nest on her couch, still dressed in her jacket and party outfit. She focuses in on a randomly selected point on the wall while keeping one ear attuned to Alex and Maggie’s soft talking in the next room over. It feels strange to be sitting in such a calm moment after the surreal events of the rest of the night. Sitting with Lena on Jack’s bed seems like something that happened days ago as opposed to several hours.

There’s shuffling next to the threshold and Alex steps in, looking weary, shutting the door behind her. She’s still in her dress from the date but it’s a little disheveled from the night’s activities. She gives Kara a quick once-over before saying: “I’ve got your PJs in the top drawer.”

Kara changes in Alex’s en-suite, shedding her outfit piece by piece into a pile on the laminate floor. The air in the bathroom is cold and she’s faced away from the mirror, looking down at the goosebumped flesh of her legs and thighs. Alex never turns on the heat in her apartment, even in the winter.

“Kara.” Alex calls from the bedroom. “I can hear you stalling.”

Kara huffs and throws on her shirt and joggers in seconds, exiting the bathroom right after. Alex is already in the bed, lights off, back facing Kara. She slips under the blankets next to her sister’s body.

“I got the extra throw from the closet.” Alex grumbles, rolling over to face her. “So you don’t steal all my blankets in the middle of the night.”

“I do not steal blankets.” Kara huffs, and promptly cocoons herself into the throw. There’s very little light from the bedroom window for her to see Alex’s face with, but she can make out some. “Go ahead and ask what you want to ask.”

“Who was it?”

“It was Lena. She’s the one who I’ve had a crush on.”

Alex is quiet, so Kara barrels on. “I know it was stupid and I know she has a boyfriend, I mean I guess she does, but it was just—and I was just—well whatever, it doesn’t really matter.”

“Kara, of course it matters.” Alex reaches out and smoothes her hair away from her forehead, a tender gesture from their shared adolescence. “Could you have made a better decision? Probably. But you’re young. I know it feels enormous now but it’ll lessen with time.”

“I just thought it might feel good to do it. And it did, but now I’m way more confused than I was before.” Kara’s voice wavers and Alex tuts, scooting in to wrap her up in a hug. Kara buries her face in the crook of Alex’s neck and breathes in the comforting scent of her laundry detergent, heart rate slowing. “Can we stick a pin in this until tomorrow morning?”

“Of course.” Alex murmurs. “Just remember not to be too hard on yourself, Kar.” She gives Kara a peck on the crown of her and and rolls over, falling asleep within minutes. Kara is awake for longer, trying to resist the urge to check her phone. It’s not successful.

The screen is so bright that she has to squint against it and initially misses the texts on the home screen. There’s a few from her group chat with James and Winn, and one from a group chat that she’s apparently in with Albie,  Maeve, and Lena that somebody has named “golf cart sluts”. There’s also a text from Lena, buried down at the bottom such that she almost doesn’t catch it on first pass. It’s simple, only a few words.

_Is everything okay? Are you somewhere safe?_

It’s time stamped 20 minutes ago. Kara re-reads it a few times as her stomach cramps with anxiety. Opening her texting app, she writes a few responses which she deletes immediately. Too stupid, too desperate, not intimate enough to send to a girl who had her hand down her pants a few hours ago. She experiments with emojis, decides to leave them out, then comes to the conclusion that some of the face options wouldn’t be bad. The finished text is as simple as it’s predecessor.

 

_Yeah Im with my sister. Did you get back to the dorm ok?_

 

The three dots pop up almost immediately.

 

_Yup jack walked me_

_Did you see that Albie and meave put us in a group chat_

_Lol_

 

Kara smiles.

 

_Yea I saw_

_Golf cart sluts for life_

 

Lena responds moments later with a heart emoji followed by a golf cart emoji, which Kara will spend the rest of the night and most of the next day over-analyzing. In that moment, she experiments with a few responses that include _what did you mean when you forgot who he was?_ and _I can still taste you,_ but deletes them like the rest. She falls asleep on her side, facing away from Alex with her phone clutched in her hand.

 

\\\\\

Kara wakes up to the ambient, far away crackling of a coffee pot, something frying on the griddle, and soft voices talking over the hum of what Kara knows on instinct is Fresh Air playing on Alex’s phone. She’s face down in the bed, bundled in a heap of blankets with her phone still inches away from her face. She flips it over to check the time before rising from her nest with a mighty stretch, relishing in the popping and adjusting of her muscles.

Padding into the kitchen, she observes Maggie sitting at the island in borrowed pajamas and Alex propped against the opposing counter with her hip, mixing something in a bowl.

“Buddy,” Maggie says as soon as she sees her. Kara slips onto the adjacent stool. “What famous Jessica is in that movie about the sick girl?”

“Um,” Kara nods in thanks when Alex passes her an appropriately beige cup of coffee. “Tandy?”

“That’s what I’m saying!” Alex hoots. “What shape do you want your pancakes in Kar?”

“Little stars please, a lot of them.”

“Okay, firstly it was definitely Lange.” Maggie asserts, pointing a finger at Alex. “Secondly, you guys still do shape pancakes?”

Kara shrugs. “I like what I like.”

“Yeah Maggie, don’t be a fun suck.” Alex barbs from over her shoulder. The skillet sizzles and spits as she carefully pours the batter onto the surface. “And it was Tandy.”

“Guys,” Kara peers down at her phone. “It was Holly Hunter.”

They manage to navigate through two helpings of pancakes and a fresh pot of coffee without discussing the previous night. Kara assumes that Alex had briefed Maggie on the situation as, although she catches her looking at the hickey on her neck over her plate of pancakes (a bear’s face with chocolate chips for eyes), she doesn’t mention anything out loud. It’s not until Kara is gulping down the lukewarm dredges of her coffee that Alex poses her attack.

“So Kara, how was the party last night?” Maggie snickers as Kara chokes and coffee goes dribbling down her chin. She hastens to wipe it up with a napkin before it stains the collar of her shirt.

“It was good.” She offers lamely. Alex and Maggie say nothing, just look at her, eyebrows raised, so Kara does the only thing she can think of and tells them the whole story. It takes over a half hour from start to finish because Maggie keeps stopping her for high-fives and Alex continually needs her to go back for clarification. (“You went to Dirty Frank’s? _You,_ Kara Danvers, went to _Dirty Frank’s,_ a bar that was recently busted for serving a beer to a 13 year old?”). By the end of it,  they’re all sitting in stunned silence. Alex keeps opening her mouth and raising her finger as if to say something and then shutting it, looking shellshocked.

“In my defense, you did tell me to have more fun this semester.” Kara concludes.

“I meant smoke weed with your friends on the quad or pass out in the bathtub at a rugby party, not feel up your roommate on her long-term boyfriend’s bed.” She squeaks. Maggie lets out a low whistle.

“And Lena Luthor too, talk about the fruit at the top of the tree.”

“What are you talking about?” Kara and Alex ask in tandem, heads swiveling to face Maggie.

“What are you guys talking about? Her mom is a super famous alumna. Not only is that family crazy rich but in her spare time she’s become like the queen of political fundraising for the GOP. She practically owns the university. Once and awhile Student Affairs has to get all glammed up and show face at her fundraisers for the school. Last year it was at their huge cabin right on Crater Lake--it was insane.”

“Was Lena there?” Kara asks. “At the fundraiser.”

“No, but Lillian trots her as out as an example of their charity and goodwill, especially after what happened to the other one. Apparently they adopted her straight up when she was a kid and tried to do this whole old money Bradgelina thing.” Maggie pauses for a moment, thinking. “Actually, there’s a pretty funny picture of her as a kid giving George W. Bush the stink eye in that house. I think that’s what made the impression.”

Kara opens her mouth to ask one of the thousand questions that have exploded into existence, but gets cut off by Alex. “But none of that matters. Because Lena has a boyfriend, right?”

“Well.” Kara begins. “About that. While we were kissing, she kind of put her hand down my hand pants—stop gagging Alex, seriously—and I stopped her.”

“Good girl.” Alex pipes, and gets punched in the shoulder by Maggie.

“Well, when I stopped her, I asked her about Jack. And she was like ‘who?’.”

Maggie actually lets out a little scream at that and has to cover her mouth. Alex sticks her with a look. “What? That’s insane.”

“It’s weird.” Alex agrees. “But I guess she might have just been...I don’t know, caught off guard?”

“I mean we were kissing, I didn’t concuss her.”

“And you know for sure they’re dating?” Maggie asks.

“Yeah, but she's evasive about it. Like she won’t tell me how long they’ve been together, stuff like that.”

“Sounds beardy to me.” Maggie declares. Alex snorts. Kara furrows her brow. “Like maybe they’re not _dating-dating,_ you know.”

Kara paused, stunned. “You think?”

“She’s hot on you, shady about her relationship, and she forgot she had a boyfriend while you guys were smooching.” Maggie is on the couch now, pulling her boots on. “How do they act when they’re with each other?”

“Affectionate, I guess.”

“Like friends affectionate or lovers affectionate?”

“Maggie, c’mon, you’re giving her ideas.” Alex chastises, snatching her car keys from the counter. “Kara, whatever’s going on there you should probably stay out of it. Even if it’s a beard situation.” She pauses. “You know what? Especially if it’s a beard situation.”

///

Kara tilts back in her desk chair, arms crossed. In front of her, on her computer is a half-filled word document titled _pitch_ sharing the screen with a blank email addressed to Cat Grant. She groans. It’s done, and it’s good, but it doesn’t have an ending. For the thirtieth time that morning she considers just sending it as is, then remembers that tomorrow she might be closer to her answer. But the deadline is Tuesday.

She clicks away from both documents temporarily and opens her Facebook. After a few mindless scrolls she opens it again for some reason on her phone, then moves to Snapchat, then migrates back to her computer. Before she knows what’s happening, Kara has Google open in front of her, fingers poised over the keyboard. The words _Lillian Luthor_ appear in front of her on the screen.

There’s millions of results. Kara looks at the bar of pictures that come up on top and selects the third one in. It’s a high res AP photo of Lillian shaking hands with Donald and Melania Trump at what looks to be a fundraiser. She shudders and clicks away, opening a more expansive page of images.

One catches her eye near the bottom that she selects to enlarge. It’s a black and white and Lillian is a young woman in it—probably Lena’s age—standing in the quad in a cardigan with Delta Chi’s letters on it. Although from what Maggie had told her Lena and Lillian aren’t related, there is a curious resemblance between them. Lillian in this picture is dark-haired, steely-eyed, and looks amazing in a cardigan.

She’s actually kinda hot.

The thought startles Kara. _Okay, lock that one up and bury it deep_ she thinks and navigates away. The news results vary from scathing to worshipful, as they would for anybody tied to a controversial presidential candidate. There’s mention, as Maggie had said, of her previous connections to other republican presidents and senate members. The family is a prominent member of the New York City Union League Club. Lena is only mentioned as a footnote, and the mysterious _other one_ not at all.

Behind her, keys jangle in the door lock and she slams her laptop shut. Looking for something else to make herself appear busy, Kara snatches a Rubik's Cube off her desk and begins to twist it haphazardly. Lena enters a moment later, dropping her bag at the entrance and approaching Kara with a shy smile.

“Hey.” She sounds so hesitant that Kara’s heart nearly breaks. “Making any progress?” Lena gestures to the Rubik’s Cube.

Kara laughs. “I’m no good at this stuff.”

“Can I try?”

She hands the toy to Lena and watches her take the seat across from her at her own desk. Lena fusses with the object for a moment, eyes cast downward, before she looks up at Kara. Kara can feel her gaze roam from her eyes to her mouth to the hickey still prominent against her throat, sees the lovely blush rise on Lena’s cheeks as she clears her throat and focuses again on solving the puzzle. “Where were you this morning?”

“I got breakfast with Jack.” The cube cracks as she adjusts and readjusts the sides. “We had a lot to talk about.”

“You didn’t tell him about—“

“I did.” Lena looks up at her hotly. Kara feels like her breath is being stolen out of her lungs. “Me and Jack don’t keep secrets from each other.”

“Because he’s your boyfriend, right? You guys date and kiss and stuff.”

Another twist. “Kara—“

“Because last night when I asked you about him you said—“

“I know what I said.” Lena murmurs. She doesn’t flinch under Kara’s bold questioning, doesn’t bite back. She just looks sad. “I was drunk. And that kiss was—“ Lena shakes her head. “Disorienting.”

Kara thinks about all the times she’s seen Lena take grown men shot for shot, and the single vodka tonic she’d finished last night. “I hate it when you lie to me.”

“I’m not lying to you. Not all the way.” Lena pauses. “What happened last night can’t happen again. That’s the truth.”

Kara feels the words as physically as if Lena had slapped her in the face, even if she knows they’re right. “I agree.”

“But I meant what I said last night. About us being friends. I care about you a lot, Kara.”

“I care about you too.” Kara responds breathlessly. Lena smiles at her and glances back down at the Rubik’s Cube in her hand, offering it out. Kara realizes with alarm that it’s finished. She accepts it delicately, as though Lena were giving her a flower, and holds it in her lap for a moment. “So let’s be friends.”

“Okay.” Lena agrees. “Let’s.”

///

The next afternoon finds Maggie and Kara huddled around a laptop in Maggie’s cluttered office. Kara is grazing on a bag of twizzlers and Maggie is picking at half a tuna sandwich as they scan through an entire day’s worth of footage, looking for anything suspicious. “What time did Amy find the cart?” Kara asks.

“Around 10.” Maggie responds. “But who knows how long it was there for. Most people who park there leave around 5 and then the only thing the alley is used for is the bike cops to rack their bikes at the end of their shift.” She hasn’t taken her eyes off the screen and neither has Kara. By 3 PM, the golf cart is still there, grainy in black and white, pristine and untouched. “You know, this is kind of a blessing in disguise.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been petitioning the budget committee for a new rig for months now.” Kara gapes in disbelief. “C’mon Kara, that thing was a road hazard. We haven’t gotten a new one since the Reagan administration. Six months of dressing up to listen to students beg for more funding for their intramural snorkling team and then give my spiel about how we need a new golf cart to drive drunk students home in--talk about demoralizing. But now it’s just fallen into our lap.”

Kara grunts, still watching the screen. They’re doing a soft fast-forward and the hours are speeding by, three to four to five to-- “Hold on a sec. Did you see what I just saw?”

“What?” Maggie squints at the screen. Kara points to the timestamp at the bottom of the screen.

“It skipped.” Flustered, Maggie rewinds the footage and lets it play, normal speed this time. Sure enough, at 6:05 the footage skips to 6:32 and the golf cart goes from untouched to spray painted almost completely red. They gape at the screen.

“Well I’ll be damned.” Maggie murmurs, leaning back in her chair with a low whistle.

“Who--”  
“The footage gets downloaded automatically onto this laptop. It stays locked in my office at all times. I’m the only person who has access.”

“Then how--”

“I don’t know.” Maggie rewinds again, watching the skip, and shakes her head. “That kid Winn is pretty good with computers, right?”

“Yeah, he’s the best.” Kara affirms.

“Can you pick his brain about this?” Maggie asks, closing the laptop. “See if there’s anyway--I don’t know, anyway the footage can be deleted remotely?” She scratches her head. “Honestly, that’s the only thing I can think of right now.”

“Of course.” Kara responds. “I’ll ask him as soon as I can.”

///

“Oh wow. You really did it.”

“Looks pretty cool, huh?”

Lena opens her mouth, shakes her head, and says nothing. Kara stands beside her handywork, hands on her hips and chest puffed, surrounded by dollar store yarn and thumbtacks. There’s a corkboard on her desk, covered with photographs of each involved person--Mike, Jack, Maggie, Dan, the golf cart--their connections to the crimes tracked by differently colored yarn.

“It’s cool.” At her desk, Lena smears a piece of brie cheese onto an apple and eats it in a single bite. “But if I come in here to find you brooding over a glass of straight whiskey with 5-o’clock shadow I’m going to have to take your gun and badge.”  
“Har har.”

“I can’t believe Jack is still on there.”

  
“Once again, he has no alibi for the time the golf cart was vandalized because _somebody_ won’t tell me where he was before the party.” Kara arches an eyebrow. “Hanging out with Gordy, maybe?”

  
“Maybe.” Lena comments blithely, downing another slice of apple. Kara’s stomach grumbles and she glances at her watch, noting that it’s almost 7 and she hasn’t eaten since those Twizzlers in Maggie’s office. She’s useless to resist the siren call of the dining hall.

“Come get dinner with me.” Kara suggests. “Watching you eat nothing but brie cheese, apples and Jolly Ranchers makes me really sad.”

Lena rolls her eyes. “Wow, I love it when you talk dirty to me.”

Kara ignores the flutter in her chest and pushes on. “Come on. I have unlimited swipes at the dining hall. My treat.”

  
Face crumpling, Lena makes a discontented noise. “The dining hall?”

“Yeah, you know, where students go to eat?” Kara folds her arms. “Lena, you have been to the dining hall before, haven’t you?”

  
“Yes?”

“Oh my God, grab your jacket, we’re going.”

After several minutes of coddling they’re trotting off along the quad. Kara’s looking up at the night sky, chatting about the book Lena had given her, how the ending was a surprise. Lena isn’t saying much but hums along. When Kara turns Lena’s eyes are fixed on her face, glittering. She looks down when she’s caught. “I’m glad you liked it.”

Kara swipes them into the busy dining hall, full of students at peak dinner hour. Lena looks a little lost by it all and Kara touches her elbow, leaning in to give her a strategy pep talk. She points out the trays, the ideal route to take to hit the best stations first, and what serving people to avoid. “Get as many french fries as you can. They go fast.” She advises. “Meet by the pizza in 10 minutes.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Kara watches Lena while she loads up on food. She’s tentative, spending a lot of time hovering around the vegetarian station with a weary look on her face. Eventually she watches as Lena adds falafel to her plate, looks satisfied, and begins to migrate on to the next area. Kara has to bite back a smile that fades when the person serving her asks loudly if she’s paying attention.

They set their trays down at a table in the back of the area and Lena gawks at the amount of food piled onto Kara’s tray. “Do you eat like that every time you come here?”

“Yup.” Kara chirps. “I gotta bulk up. I burn through calories pretty quick.” She holds up her arm and pulls her sleeve up to flex, demonstrating. To her delight, the bite of food that Lena had situated onto her fork falls off halfway enroute to her mouth and Lena has to blink several times before she appears to come back into reality.

“Too bad we can’t all have that metabolism.” She comments, and moves a piece of falafel around on her plate. “Did you submit your proposal to Professor Grant?”

Kara nods her head. “Right on the deadline. She’s going to look over it it and get back to me.”

“You sound morose.”

  
“It doesn’t have an ending.” Kara grumbles, flopping back against her chair. “This golf cart thing is really messing me up. I mean, it hasn’t narrowed my suspect pool at all.”

“No even Mike?” Lena prods. “Wouldn’t he have been at work?”

“His shift didn’t start until 7. I checked.” Kara grumbles. “Plenty of time for him to have done it and still gotten to work.”

“Yeah, but do you really think Mike Elich is smart enough to find out how to delete all that footage off of the campus security servers remotely?”

Kara grunts, taking a bite of pizza and chewing contemplatively. “I guess not. Hey, you’re pushing for this pretty hard considering that after Mike the pool is pretty much narrowed down to your boyfriend.”

Lena shrugs one shoulder. “Or maybe the vandal is somebody who you haven’t thought of yet.”

Kara is quiet, considering. Something nags at the back of her brain, nebulous and insistent, but she ignores it. She smiles at Lena and puts a slice of pizza on her plate despite her protests, laughing when she uses her straw to flick seltzer water on her in retaliation. Lena balks when Kara insists on filling two ziplock bags with Fruit Loops before leaving but becomes a willing accomplice, holding the bag open and using her body to cover as Kara pours the cereal in. She stuffs it into her purse and giggles along with Kara when they spirit out of the dining hall and back along the quad to their dorm.

///

Even over the fuzzy connection of the computer screen, Kara can tell that Dr. Newbold’s office looks the same as it did when she was 13. The placid walls, the photographs of her adult children, and the drawers that she knows are full of toys from her early days of play therapy. The woman herself is similarly unchanged, save for a new wrinkle here or a grey hair there. She wears earth tones and a tepid smile.

“Kara, you’re looking well.” She says. “How's university treating you?”

“Alright.” Kara responds, hedging already. “I just found out that I’m going to write a featured story for the school paper. If it goes well, I might even get a permanent beat.”

“Well, that’s marvelous.” Dr. Newbold has a way of making everything she says sound terribly genuine. Kara leans into it like somebody might lean into the comfort of their mother’s touch. “What’s the article about?”

  
“On-campus crime. There’s been a string of vandalisms on campus and I’m trying to figure out who did it.”

“Sounds like hard-hitting journalism.”

“I hope so.” There’s a prolonged period of silence. They’re edging around the real issue and Kara knows it; she’s sure Dr. Newbold’s realized it as well. After 6 years there are very few secrets left between them. “There was actually something else I wanted to talk to you about, though.”

“I’m all ears.”

Kara clears her throat, tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and adjusts on her computer chair. Although she knows Lena is out for the night, she glances over her shoulder reflexively. “I’ve been having feelings for somebody. A girl. My roommate.”

“I see.” Dr. Newbold is looking down, writing something off-screen. Kara assumes it must be on one of her ubiquitous yellow legal pads. “You’ve never mentioned having feelings for other women before.”

Kara adjusts her glasses. “The whole thing is kind of new. And complicated. Not because she’s a girl that’s not--well it’s not like, the #1 issue. She has a boyfriend.”

  
“That _is_ complicated.” Dr. Newbold hums, continuing to scribble on her pad. Kara knows she shouldn’t feel anxious about how much she’s writing. The feeling comes anyway.

“I also feel like, um,” Kara tries to continue before she can ask any more questions. She rubs her lips together and lifts up a little to sit on her hands. “You know, before my parents died, things were really good for me. I had a lot of friends and my parents had good jobs and boys liked me. And then everything just--went to shit. It all went to hell.”

“Do you feel like you’ve spent a lot of the last few years processing your anger about that?”

“No offense, Dr. Newbold, but I’m not really trying to be psychoanalyzed right now.” Kara sniffs and wipes at her nose. Dr. Newbold raises her hands in a gesture of deference. “My point is, I went from that, to living in a group home because my only living relative didn’t want me, to the Danvers and a high school where everybody made fun of me because my parents dying made me super weird. And now I’m here.”

“Where’s here?”

“Happy, I guess. And willing to let myself--feel like that about another person. I’ve been having dreams again, about my dad, and about the night they died. I didn’t like being so unhappy before but it also felt right somehow. And now that I’m…” Kara trails off, looking down and to the left.

“Kara.” Dr. Newbold says in her deep, steady voice. “Being happy and enjoying your life is not disrespectful to the memory of your parents. Contrarily, I think they would be thrilled to see the woman you’ve become in the last six years.”

“Geeze, Dr. Newbold.”

“And I think that feeling like you’re ready to explore sexual and romantic relationships with other people your age is an important step in your recovery.” Kara looks up, eyes still wet. “That being said, I don’t know how healthy it is to engage in that kind of exploration with somebody who already has a partner.”

“Yeah.”

“But maybe you could take the energy and transfer it to something else. It’s 2017. I hear you can set up dates on the computer now.”

Kara can’t help the laugh the bubbles up out of her. She wipes at her eyes with one hand. “Are you telling me I should get on Tinder, Dr. Newbold?”  
“Is that what it’s called?” She scribbles something in her notebook. “Interesting.”

“Thanks for setting up a time to talk to me. I know Skype is a little...unorthodox.”

“Nonsense, it’s fine. And I’m glad you messaged me. I was beginning to wonder where you’d gone. Seems like you’ve had a lot to get off your chest.”

Kara scuffs her shoe against the wood floor of the dorm and bobs her head. It’s the truth.

//

“I can’t believe my therapist told me to get on Tinder.” Kara huffs. She holds her phone above her head, white text box of her bio section empty and daunting. Her and Winn had already selected a few fit-looking pictures of her after several slices of pizza and a hot debate about whether or not a shot of her lifting weights was douchey or not. “What do I put for my biography?”

“Uh.” Winn is sitting at the desk next to his bed, focused on something on his computer screen. He glances up at there she’s laying on his sheets, glaring at her phone. “Star emoji, dog emoji, golf cart emoji.”

“Ugh.” Kara tosses her phone down beside her and rolls over, burying her head into his pillow. “This is a horrible idea. I’m never going to get over Lena, truthfully. Yesterday I watched her take two adderall with a large cup of black coffee and I was like wow, she’s so amazing.” She pokes her head up, face red. “Can you believe that? Her heart’s gonna freaking explode.”

“Uh huh.” His eyes haven’t left the screen in front of him. Kara watches him click around for a few minutes, tapping on his keyboard, before rolling her eyes and sitting up. “You’re no fun tonight. Where’s James, anyway?”

“Sorry, sorry, it’s this stupid project.” Winn shakes his head and closes whatever window is open on his computer, swiveling his chair to face her. “I’m here for this gay drama. And James is at that monthly budget committee meeting for student affairs. They’ve been trying to get new uniforms for the rugby team for the whole semester.”

The phantom buzzing again in the back of Kara’s head returns, quiet and persistent. She tries to shake it off but finds that she can’t quite. It sticks with her, a whisper saying something she can’t quite understand. “That’s fun.”

Winn agrees and clamors onto the bed with her, grabbing for her phone. They workshop a good bio together, with emojis and actual text in equal measure, and actually manage to swipe through a couple profiles. Kara is surprised to note that a lot of them are actually pretty cute, girls with long, dark hair and short, curly hair and dimpled smiles and girls in their sports uniforms and smiling at coffee shops. She’s taken by it all.

“See?” Winn is smiling cheekily. “You’re all like, Lena who?”

It’s not exactly true, but she doesn’t correct him. It’s probably better for her to let other people believe it to be true--maybe she’ll eventually come to believe it, too. “Winn, can I ask you a question?”

“Yeah, shoot.”

“Remember when I told you about Saturday night what Lena said to me after we kissed?”

“You mean when she forgot momentarily that her boyfriend of several years existed? Yeah, I remember.”

“Well, I told it to Maggie too and said that maybe Jack is Lena’s beard.”

Winn’s eyebrows shoot up. “Really? Huh. I guess it would kind of make sense. If it’s true, she’ll probably eventually tell you, right?” He sighs. “Either way, I wouldn’t put all of your eggs into that basket based on something that might be true. Even if it is admittedly a little weird.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Kara says, but she’s gazing off and contemplating. “I hear you.”

//

There’s a book waiting for Kara on her bed when she gets back to the dorm. A smile stretches across her face when she reads the title, _The Stranger Beside Me._ She glances over to the window seat where Henry sits, supple and blushing, and her other book leaning against him. Behind her, Lena sits at her desk, headphones in, drafting something out for a project that’s been vexing her for a week. Kara’s been in the room for several minutes, flopped on her bed and reading, before Lena turns around with a squeak of surprise.

“I didn’t realize you were home.”

“Sorry, I kinda snuck in. You looked pretty busy.”

“It’s this stupid project.” Lena huffs, tossing her pencil onto her desk and crossing her arms. She leans back in her chair. “But I think I’m calling it quits for the night.”

“Party?”

“Actually, I was thinking about spending the night in. There’s a documentary about Jane Goodall on Netflix with my name written all over it. Wanna join?”

Kara’s heart soars. It’s not like they’ve never spent the night in their dorm together, despite Lena’s hectic social schedule and Kara’s frequent visits to her sister’s. Contrarily, their routine of the last month has been full of the minutiae of cohabitation, orbiting around each other as they brush their teeth, gossiping about other people in their hall on homework breaks, DJing each other’s showers, fighting over who has to kill the drain spiders (Lena, always Lena). But it’s a rarer bit for them to spend deliberate time together and the prospect of it makes Kara feel giddy.

“Sure, sounds great.”

Lena nods and begins gathering up her things. She asks Kara to turn off the overheads and plug in the fairy lights strewn across the walls of their room and she does, throwing the room into a rose-orange light. The change shifts the temperature of the moment and Kara’s gaze flits over to the bed, where Lena’s laptop rests, and she realizes that that’s where they’ll likely be sitting; together on that bed.

“I’m going to run and pop the popcorn. What kind of coke do you want?” Kara makes a questioning noise. “For this.” Lena lifts a pint of whiskey off the desk and shakes it. “What do you want for a mixer?”

“Oh uh, I don’t need a mixer. Straight is fine.” It’s a stupid thing, trying to impress Lena. Stupid and foolhardy and desperate, considering that they’re friends and not girlfriends and not even trying to be girlfriends. She can’t help it all the same, and when a smile pulls at Lena’s face, part-pleased and part-knowing, her heart flutters in her chest like a small bird.

“Whatever you say.” Lena says, and leaves. Kara glances at the bed again, looking cozy in the soft light. She thinks about all of the things Lena must do in that bed, sleeping and reading and crying, and suddenly the idea of coming up to sit with her in it feels altogether too intimate. She considers calling the whole thing off and going to her sister’s, which is what Alex would have wanted her to do, she’s sure of it. But then Lena comes back in, popped bag of popcorn in hand, and Kara stops thinking altogether.

“What are you doing, weirdo?” She hums. “Get up on the bed.”  
They shuffle together on the mattress and eventually settle in side-by-side, with what Kara hopes is a respectable amount of distance between them. Lena situates the laptop on their legs and queues up the movie before cracking the lid to the whiskey and talking a long, healthy pull. When she takes it away from her mouth her lips are wet and when she leans to hand it to Kara she can smell the earthy scent of her soap. Kara is taking her own drink off the bottle, feeling it burn down her throat when Lena presses play on the film. She must school her face well despite the hardness of the liquor because Lena does look impressed when she hands it back.

Kara’s attention is split down the middle; half on the movie, half on the woman beside her. She shifts closer and sighs and giggles at the appropriate moments. They trade swigs from the bottle until Kara’s body loosens, she leans in to murmur things about the movie so close that Kara can smell the sweet bite of alcohol on her breath and feels dizzy with it. When the movie ends, Kara cries and Lena only teases her about it a little. What follows is a series of snowballing excuses not to leave the bed--they look at other movies, and when none capture their attention shift into a casual game of truth or dare.

The pint is half-gone and Kara is feeling honeyed enough that the suggestion, when it comes up organically in conversation, doesn’t seem as silly as it might have under normal circumstances. She dares Lena to drink water out of the toilet bowl. Lena scoffs but does it anyway, leaving Kara sobbing with laughter into her pillow. Kara has to open their bedroom window and scream something obscene into the dark night air. Eventually it de-escalates to the two of them, side by side on the bed, aping something that feels more like truth-or-truth.

“Where were you born?” Kara asks, gaze fixed on the ceiling above Lena’s bed. How had she never noticed before that Lena had painted glow-in-the dark stars on her walls? She’s not an expert, but they look like real constellations.

“Trenton, New Jersey.” Lena replies. She’s on her side looking at Kara looking at the ceiling and when Kara barks out a laugh, she slaps her lightly on the shoulder. “What?”

“ _You?_ Were born in _Trenton_ ? In _New Jersey?_ ”

“Yeah, I mean it was before the Luthors adopted me but that’s where I lived ‘till I was eight.” Her lips form a crooked smile. “Trenton Makes, The World Takes. As they say. My mom was a secretary in New York and we had this house where the train ran right behind our back yard so she could get to work every morning.” She pauses. “Hey, if I show you something you won’t laugh at me, right?”

“Of course not.”

“You have to swear.”

“Cross my heart.”  Without further preamble, Lena rolls off of the bed and begins to ruck her joggers down around her knees. Kara’s mouth opens but no sound comes out. She’s wearing Supergirl underwear and when she turns around, she pulls those down, too, and Kara is about to post a very vocal protest until she sees--

“Is that the outline of New Jersey?”

“Yup.”

“On your butt.”

“Yup.” The comical nature of it doesn’t really cover up the fact that Kara is looking at Lena’s ass, and it’s a nice one, tattoo notwithstanding. Is this how one becomes a butt person?

“It’s a little crooked.”

“Well, a 16 year old did it with a safety pin. There’s no accounting for taste.” Lena is already pulling her pants and underwear back up and climbing back into the bed, resuming her position next to Kara. “Can I ask you something now?”

“Yeah. Those are the rules of the game I think.” Kara scratches her head.

“Your arm. Can I see it?” Caught off guard, Kara scoots back a little to fully regard Lena. She looks uncertain. “You can totally say no. I just—“

“No, it’s fine.” Kara says, and means it, although it’s never really been fine before. At the group home she’d learned to carefully wrap her dressings in Saran Wrap to keep them dry during showers because the house mom had been too squeamish to do it. It was difficult and clumsy work with her left arm and often imperfect, allowing water to slip in and burn the exposed wound. Eliza’d always helped her, though, never shied away from it. She would Saran Wrap it and change the dressings and put the special burn ointment on that the doctor promised would mitigate the scarring, at least a little bit. And Alex too, when she wasn’t there, even as a 16 year old she never balked at the fundamentally grotesque. Then again, Eliza and Alex are special people, she reasons. You’d have to be one, to deal with something like that.

She sits up so she’s cross-legged on the bed and pulls her long-sleeved t-shirt over her head, praying that the bra she’s wearing isn’t the one with Scotty dogs on it. She’s relieved when she looks down and sees polka dots. The craggy skin of her arm is stark against the whiter, smoother skin of her stomach. Kara holds it there, and glances up to see Lena looking at it with the reflection of the fairy lights twinkling in her eyes like stars.

“Wow.” She breathes. “It’s actually kind of awesome looking.” Kara raises her eyebrows, swallows. Her heart is hammering fast in her chest like a kettle drum. Lena reaches out and takes Kara’s injured hand in her own, squeezing it. “I’m so glad we could keep being friends.” She whispers, and Kara realizes exactly what she needs to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be honest can you tell that my college didnt have a quad and I have no idea what a quad really is
> 
> also next chapter is entirely written in emojis. love you guys


	5. five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The vandal is Ted Bundy.”
> 
> “No!”

Kara wakes up with cotton in her mouth and an unfamiliar warmth pressed against her back. She blinks twice, rubbing her eyes and focusing on the wall inches away from her face. This is her dorm, but certainly not her bed; the comforter is too heavy, too luxurious feeling. And then there’s the person fast asleep on her other side, breathing deep and even and tickling the baby hairs on the back of her neck.

  
“Lena?” She murmurs, rolling over. What she sees makes her heart start thumping hard in her chest. Lena inches away with her face slackened in sleep, dark hair splashed up on the pillow. She’s resting her head on the crook of her bent arm and it squishes her cheek sweetly, adding to her placid, passive expression. Kara is so used to seeing her face contorted in different conceits; eyebrows furrowed over a particularly hard math problem, knotted in concern when Kara finishes an entire package of cookies within and hour, darkened with a frown from over the top of a novel, that seeing her look relaxed is almost alien. Kara wants to curl up in it and never leave, and her body vibrates with the willpower it takes to not wrap Lena up in her arms and press her face urgently into the crook of her neck.

  
Instead, she reaches out and gives her a small shake on her shoulder, whispering her name. When Lena doesn’t stir immediately, she does it again with more force. Stuttering awake, her confused expression melts into a smile when her eyes open and she sees Kara.

  
“Time is it?” She mumbles, voice sleep-heavy.

  
“Maybe 9?” Kara guesses. She hasn’t taken her eyes off of Lena’s face.

  
“How much would I have to pay you to go to Noonan’s and get us some breakfast?”

  
“This isn’t a fun game,” Kara murmurs. “Because we both know you could actually pay me any number I gave you. And I’ll do it for nothing, anyway.”

  
Lena smiles into her pillow. “Take a 20 out of my wallet and get me like, the biggest cup of black coffee they have and a yogurt parfait.” She rolls over on her back and stretches, giving Kara a devastating view of her cleavage in the tank top she’s in as well as a sliver of her stomach. “You know what? An OJ too. And whatever you want.”

  
“Aye aye.” Kara can’t scramble out of the bed fast enough. She fishes out the money and throws a crew neck over her t-shirt before stumbling out of the dorm room. She regrets not putting on a jacket as soon as she steps outside; it’s warming up, for sure, but there’s still a distinct freeze in the air. Kara makes her way to Noonan’s at a quick clip.

  
The commute is lengthy and when she gets there the cafe is half-full of Sunday morning revelers, but it’s just as well. It gives her time to think. Kara Danvers has always prided herself on her hunches and her theories—has bet most of her academic and future professional career on her ability to get to the bottom of things, even. There’s something calming about the act of looking at empirical evidence, or the facts, as they were, and drawing reasonable conclusions. The act of deduction is almost wonderfully detached, something that removes her from herself, that’s inherently desirable. Even when vexing like in the case of the vandalism, it’s exhilarating.

  
So these are the facts, as she has them: Lena Luthor has a boyfriend, maybe, and her story is shaky at best. Lena Luthor had kissed her, with bravado, and tried to have sex with her, and held her hand and expressed interest in her even after looking at what Kara perceives as the ugliest part of herself. Lena Luthor has given her four gifts: a succulent named Henry, two novels written by true crime expert Ann Rule, and her own Rubik’s cube, solved.

  
She has a series of hypothesis by the time she’s retrieved her loot from Noonan’s and returned to the dorm. Lena accepts her food and although she initially refuses, by the time Kara gets out of her morning shower she sees she’s eaten the pink frosted donut out of the half-dozen, just as she knew she would. Seated at her desk, Lena is pouring again over her project such that she doesn’t notice when Kara emerges from the bathroom in her t-shirt and underwear. The box of donuts is next to her, open and half gone.

  
Kara’s seen the line that Lena has toed in the sand as clear as day. She also has her facts, the clear cut ones, and her hypotheses, generally true. With these in mind she doesn’t edge over the line per say, maybe just tiptoes around it, a test. She touches Lena’s shoulder with her hand first, just so she turns her head slightly, and leans over to reach into the donut box. It’s a shot in the dark, based on watching one too many teen movies with Alex as opposed to any real world experience, but when she hears the sound of a pencil snapping as her chest aligns within an inch of Lena’s face she knows she’s tapped into something.

  
//

  
She’s definitely tapped into something.

  
They run out of excuses for Kara to be sleeping in Lena’s bed around the end of the first week, not that they were much good to begin with. Movies would bleed into the early hours of the morning, or they would spend all night plotting out Kara’s article together. Lena proved herself to be a worthy brainstorming partner, even as Kara felt like her conceit was falling apart.

  
“There’s something about it that’s just not right.” She’d said one night as they sat together in bed, observing the suspect board. “It doesn’t feel cohesive.”

  
“Maybe you just need to find your ending.”

  
Kara isn’t so sure.

  
Sometimes Lena will bounce project quandaries off of her. These are her favorite excuses of them all, sitting with Lena in front of her-cross legged and managing to explain some kind of graduate level engineering theory in a way Kara could actually wrap her head around. Between cigarette breaks she would show her sketches, her drafts of drafts, and pull her ideas down from the ether where they usually lived to show to Kara.

  
After, they would fall asleep side by side on the twin bed, Kara against the wall and Lena against Kara. That begins to bleed, too. Waking up together stretches from a 5 minute event to 10 to ‘if we don’t get out of bed right now we’re fucked’. They lay, bodies heavy with sleep, facing each other with no space between them. Sometimes Lena rubs her back gently into wakefulness, sometimes she blows her morning breath into Kara’s face and cackles when Kara gags.

Sometimes Kara moans about waking up until the last minute to get a rise out of Lena, almost always she flings half of her body onto Lena’s and revels in the way she wraps her arms around Kara’s middle and tucks her face into the crook of her neck, inhaling.

  
“Have you ever thought about quitting smoking?” Kara asks on one such occasion, body burrowed into Lena’s. “No offense, but you reek.”

  
“I’ve been quitting smoking since I was 17.” Lena says. She launches into a half-story about being too young to buy Nicorette gum and going bodega to bodega with Jack trying to find a place that would sell it them. Finally, they’d given up and found an article that said hard candy would help. The Jolly Ranchers suddenly make more sense. “It’ll pass once my project is in.”

  
“That’s a funny story.”

  
Lena hums. “Jack’s always been ride or die. He’s the best friend I’ve ever had.”

  
Then, of course, there’s that. The elephant in the room, the line in the sand, Jack’s specter with them in the bed. Kara continues to peer over it, figuring out what she can discern, and it’s...promising. Lena talks about Jack little, and when she does he’s a best friend. She stutters and drops what she’s holding when Kara comes out of the shower in only a towel. She breathes uneven when Kara gets closer than she needs to and brushes intentionally against her.

  
“I just want to say, for the record, that this is a bad idea.”

  
“You always say that.”

  
“And it’s almost always a bad idea.”

  
Kara rolls her eyes and takes a pointed drink out of the thermos she’s sharing with Winn. Below them, James’s rugby team engages in a friendly skirmish with another local college. “Oh! They’re doing the butt thing, they’re doing the butt thing—God, that is so homoerotic.”

  
Winn makes a face of agreement. “Anyway, back to our conversation about the pros and cons of seducing your straight roommate—“

  
“She’s definitely not straight.” Kara sets the thermos down on the metal bleacher between them. “That, I know.”

  
“Well, whatever, doesn’t mean she’s gay either.” Winn points out. “You’re basing this whole thing on a pretty bold assumption.”

  
“A correct assumption.” Kara says, and she’s sure of it. Lots of things can become apparent when you’re keeping a weather eye open for them. Lena’s vested interest in women’s soccer, for instance, or her Spotify playlist titled Lilith Fair. Her best friend/boyfriend. None of those things are peculiar on their own, but together? Kara bites at the pad of her thumb, thinking.

  
“I’m just saying. Try treading lightly for once, maybe.”

  
Kara scoffs. “I always tread lightly.” Her eyes are tracking the players on the field, tip of her thumb still between her lips. Something catches her eye and her brow furrows. “Wait, aren’t there supposed to be 15 players on James’s team? Where’s the 15th?”

  
“They’re still trying to find Jesse’s replacement.”

  
“Okay, so what happened to Jesse?”

  
Winn shrugs, leaning back on his hands. “He filed a sexual harassment claim against coach. So he was removed while the hearing is pending.”

  
“But the coach is still there.” Kara points out, bewildered. “How come he gets to stay and Jesse gets taken out?”

  
“That’s the campus justice system for ya, Kara.” Winn sighs. “One big garbage can full to the brim with shit that’s also on fire. 20 bucks says the coach won’t get anything else but a slap on the wrist for it.”

  
Kara’s attention is drawn back to the field where both teams are huddled, discussing their next move. James breaks away for a second, searching for them in the stands, and smiles when he catches them. He extends a thumbs up. They both return the gesture.

  
“How is James taking it?”

  
“You know, he hates it. Who wouldn’t. Some of the guys are on coach’s side though, you know how it is.” Winn pauses. “He’s not optimistic about it.”

  
“That’s a really awful situation.” Kara agrees. They sit in silence for a while, watching the action below them, before she adds, “Maybe I should be keeping my eye on coach for the next vandalism.” It’s meant to be a joke, but Winn doesn’t laugh. He’s gazing contemplatively out at the game.

  
“Don’t you have enough on your plate without waiting for another one?”

  
“Maybe so.” Kara agrees. “I was thinking about getting some in-person quotes from the people I’m writing about. See if I can’t fill out the article a little.”

  
“That’s a good idea. Who’s first on your list?”

  
“Jack.” Winn and Kara make heavy eye contact. The game continues on behind them, an afterthought.

  
“Kara.” Winn says evenly. “Remember what I said about treading.”

  
“I know, I know.” Kara’s attention drifts back onto the field. “Do it lightly.”

  
A roar from the field piques their interest; somebody’s won the game. When they join the group James is grinning and giddy with victory—plus, one would suppose, pre-skirmish wine. He pulls Winn and Kara into a hug, smelling like sweat and freshly mowed grass.

  
“You guys are coming to the after-party, right?”

  
Winn and Kara wear matching grimaces. “We were thinking more...pizza and movies tonight.”

  
“Yeah.” Kara says. “I’ve already gone out more in the last month than ever in my life. I’m ready to tap out for a minute.”

  
“C’mon you guys.” James needles. “PSU is only here for one night. And Pi Lam is going to be there too.”

  
“Tempting. But pass, dude.”

  
When they finally wheedle their way out of the crowd, James is already hoisted and hooting on the shoulders of one of his teammates. Winn rolls his eyes.

“Watch.” He says. “Two hours tops and we get a text to come bail him out. I love him, but he’s a lightweight.”

  
///

  
“I’m sorry, what are we doing here again?”

  
“James.” Winn says, scanning the raucous crowd. He’s pressed into Kara’s chest by necessity and the 20 other warm bodies surrounding them. Somebody spills beer down his back and he winces. “He sent an SOS text.”

  
“But we were having so much fun carbo loading after not playing rugby.” Kara stands on her tiptoes and tries to see over the crowd with no avail. “Is he okay?”

  
“Probably just needs a save. You go right I’ll go left?”

  
Kara nods, feeling a pang in her bladder. The first top in her search for James: the women’s room. Because they’re in a dormitory, she’s prepared for a long wait and destroyed restroom, but when she opens the door it’s actually quiet. There are five bathroom stalls, all unoccupied except for the first. Kara sees three pairs of shoes underneath the door before she hears a familiar voice.

  
“Albie?”

  
There’s a pause in conversation, then the sound of a lock clicking and the door swings open to reveal not only Albie, but Lena and Maeve also crammed into the stall. Kara blinks.

  
“Kara! We were just talking about you.” Albie grins and reaches out to grasp Kara by her elbow. Before she can fully process, she’s being yanked in to stand ass to ass with the trio. Noticing immediately that they’ve weighed down the small pull-down shelf with somebody’s purse, she only has a moment to wonder why before Maeve is leaning down to snort something off of it, then snapping back up with a sniff. Neither Albie or Lena pay her any attention. “I heard you’ve gotten on Tinder.”

  
Kara furrows her brow. “How—“ She’s cut off by Albie pressing a finger to her lips, smushing them up. Behind them, Lena stifles a giggle. Kara wasn’t expecting to see her tonight. Her heart is all the gladder that she is.

  
“Doesn’t matter.” Albie says, shaking her head. “The point is, delete it.”

  
“What—“

  
“You heard me. The only people using Tinder on this campus are uggos and freaks.” She pauses. “And you, apparently.”

  
“Thanks.”

  
“Also there are like, six girls at the sorority who would totally rail you, no questions asked.”

  
Kara takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry—“  
“So I’ve taken the liberty of setting up a date for you.”

  
“What?” Kara and Lena exclaim at the same time. When Kara glances at her again, Lena is red all the way up to her hairline, corners of her mouth dipped into a frown.

  
“Hear me out.” Albie pushes on. “Lena is really nice.”

  
“What?” Kara and Lena exclaim again in tandem, an octave higher than before. Albie rolls her eyes.

  
“Not dummy over here, obviously. She’s a Delta.”

  
“Isn’t it a little weird that—I mean, her name is also—“

  
“Dating multiple people with the same name happens.” Maeve chimes in. “I’m like, basically not legally allowed to be in the same room as guys named Andrew anymore.”

  
“Well me and Lena aren’t dating—“

  
“Will you please just look at her, before anyone freaks out?” Albie extends her phone out and Kara takes it, cautiously. She can sense Lena’s eyes on her as she she peeks at the picture. What she sees is surprising—Other Lena is cute, or rather, handsome. A short, masculine haircut, dark features, a pretty smile, a letterman’s jacket. Kara hums.

  
“Okay, she’s actually—cute.”

  
Albie cheers even as Lena’s jaw drops open, aghast. She’s redder than she was before. Kara doesn’t miss the stormy expression on her face as her lips form a tight smile, handing back Albie’s phone. “So can I give you her number?”

  
“Sure.” Another woop. Lena shoves her hands in the pockets of her pants and toes the ground. Kara tries to keep her gaze focused on Albie’s smiling face.

  
“Kara, can we talk for a second—“ Lena begins, hesitant. The door to the bathroom rattles with several sharp, subsequent knocks.

  
“Kara, are you in there?” It’s Winn’s voice. Kara unlatches the lock behind her with a clean snick and begins to back out of the overcrowded stall, a placating smile on her face. She hollers something affirmative to Winn. Lena follows her.

  
“Kara,” she whispers fiercely, stopping her from pulling the bathroom door open with a hand on Kara’s elbow. “You don’t have to go on a date just because Albie is pressuring you.”

  
“We can hear you, loser.” Albie calls, and Lena rolls her eyes. Her grip is still on Kara, hot and insistent. There’s another bang on the door.

  
“Just a second!” Kara looks over her shoulder, then back to Lena. “I’m not doing it because of that. Lena is cute.” She doesn’t miss the way Lena—this Lena—blushes under the double meaning of the statement. She shifts her gaze downward again and clenches her fingers on Kara’s sleeve once before releasing her altogether.

  
“Kara, I found James!”

  
“Just a second!” Kara turns back to Lena. “What are you guys doing tonight?”

  
Lena shrugs, eyes focused on the wall next to Kara’s head. Kara figures she looks too despondent to be high.

“Albie and Maeve want to go out.”

  
“Well, why don’t you come back with us? We can watch a documentary or something.” Lena’s eyes flick over her face before her expression hardens and she shakes her head.

  
“No, I’m okay.” She says, and begins to turn back towards the stall. Kara breathes harshly and crosses her arms.

  
“C’mon Lena, don’t be like that!” The lock clicks closed behind her. “Shoot.”

  
“Kara!” There’s more banging on the door, which she wretches open to come face to face with James and Winn, the latter’s hand raised mid-knock. “Uh, found James.” He says dumbly.

  
They leave the same way they came, James tipsy and recounting the story of the guys trying to get him to play Edward 40 Hands. “They won’t take no for an answer.” He says.

  
“The other dudes on the rugby team?”

  
“No, the Pi Lam guys. They hang out with us, like, every week. You think they’d get tired of it all after a while.”

  
That explains the presence of Albie, Lena and Maeve. Kara is quiet, sucked into her own head as they traverse the main drag of campus back to Winn’s dorm. When they reach the turnoff to McPhearson Hall, Kara stops and scratches the back of her head.

  
“I think I’m actually going to head back to mine.”

  
“But we still have pizza.”

  
“I’ve got a lot on my mind. Next weekend?”

  
James and Winn exchange a significant look but let her go, making her promise to text when she reaches the dorm safely. Kara agrees and takes off down the path to her own room, deep in thought.

  
///

  
Unknown number [7:05] hey :)

  
Kara [7:06] hey, I’m sorry, who is this?

  
Unknown number [7:08] my b, this is Lena. albie gave me your number

  
Lena [7:08] sorry she said it would be cool if I texted!

  
Kara sits back in her desk chair and casts her gaze up at the ceiling. She sets her phone down, picks it up again, and sets it back. Chewing on her thumbnail, she’s aware that she only has so long to answer before it gets weird.

  
What’s the worst that could happen if she agrees to go on a date with Lena? She’s cute. And whatever was going on with Lena, her Lena, well—would it be so bad if a casual date jumpstarted things?

  
Kara [7:15] no it’s totally cool

  
Kara [7:15] I’m actually really glad you texted :)

  
The door opens and shuts, drawing Kara’s attention from the phone. When Lena comes peeking around the corner, her face is strained and there’s a crumpled piece of paper in her hand. Kara puts down her phone.

  
“What’s going on?”

  
Wordlessly, Lena hands her the tattered paper. It’s folded almost into a ball and Kara has to set it down and smooth it out on her desk to read what’s printed on it. When she does, her eyebrows shoot above her hairline and she smiles. “Lena, this is incredible!” Kara shoots up, wrapping Lena up into a tight hug. The other woman doesn’t respond.

  
“It’s good, right?”

  
“Lena, it’s great. An A+ on your engineering project, wow!” Kara breaks away to glance around the room. “I wish we had a fridge or something for me to hang this up on. Oh! Hold on.” She takes the paper to her desk and sorts through a pile of junk, coming up triumphantly with a push pin. With great flourish, she pins the winning grade to the corner of the suspect board. “There. Right where it belongs. Wow. You must have worked really hard. I mean I know you did, but you’re so dang smart I can’t believe it sometimes.”

  
“The professor said I was one of two people to get an A.” Lena’s mouth is half-turned up in a smile. Kara beams, chest bursting with pride.

  
“I’m sure you’re much prettier than the other guy.” Lena chuckles and looks down, rubbing her arm. “Hey, what’s wrong? Why aren’t you more excited?”

  
“I texted my mom about it earlier.” Lena admits. “She still hasn’t responded.”

  
Kara frowns and the pride in her chest morphs into a keen protectiveness. The words _she doesn’t deserve you anyway_ are on the tip of her tongue when her phone vibrates loudly, a few times. Lena coughs.

  
“Plans with Winn and James?”

  
“Actually,” Kara squints down at the bright screen. “It’s that girl Albie set me up with.”

  
“Oh.” Lena crosses her arms and sniffs.

“So are you going to go out with her?”

  
Kara shrugs. “She asked if I have plans tonight.”

  
“You know, I’ve met Lena.” Kara looks up and realizes that Lena has picked up a pen off of her desk and is clicking it, open and closed, on the wood surface. She’s not meeting Kara’s eye. “She’s really not all that. She’s a sculpting major.”

  
“Which is to say...”

  
“You can do better.” Lena kicks her foot. “You can do much better.”

  
“Well I’m not exactly getting a ton of offers.” Kara says hoarsely, heart hanging in her chest like the moon. Lena has nothing to say to that. “But it doesn’t matter anyway. I have plans tonight.”

  
“Oh?”

  
“Yup. I’ve got—“ Kara picks up a small jar full of coins and bills on her desk and shakes it. “Probably about 33 dollars in here and I’m going to use it to take my smarty pants best friend out for dinner.”

  
The smile Lena gives her is enough for Kara to think that she would do this forever just to see it again.

  
///

  
At the frat, two dazed looking boys point her upstairs to the hallway where Jack’s bedroom is. As she quietly shuffles towards the door, Kara can’t help but remember the last time she came down this way, and with who. She shakes her head, trying to clear out those thoughts.  
He opens the door when she knocks with a congenial smile. There are bags under his eyes, though, and his hair is tousled like he’s just been sleeping. Kara notes when she comes in that the bed sheets are mussed as well.

  
“You can sit on the bed.” Jack offers, and goes to rifle around in the mini fridge. Kara takes the opportunity to take in the feeling of the room. Last time she was here, she wasn’t really on the lookout for decor, but in a clearer state of mind she’s more attentive to detail.

  
There’s a clear delineation between one side of the space and the other. Jack’s is adorned with several posters, mostly for broadway musicals and one or two for video games. There’s two crates stacked one on top of the other that constitute a makeshift nightstand, on which he’s put two framed pictures. One is of him and his family, and the other is of Lena. She looks a little younger dressed a private school uniform, complete with skirt, tall socks, and boxy green blazer, and is crouched in front of a bodega with a sign that says _do you like it raw? Fresh sushi._ She’s mid eye-roll.

  
Kara smiles despite herself and picks the photo up for a closer look. When she brings it near to her face, she notices there’s another picture tucked into the thick wooden frame. Furrowing her brow, she uses her thumb to catch the corner and pull it up. It’s a photo booth strip. The first picture is of Jack and Gordy, arms around each other’s shoulders, wide grins on their faces. Kara’s heart speeds up.

  
“Kara? Beer or wine?”

  
“Uh, beer please. Sorry.” Kara slides the photo back into the frame and sets it back onto the stand before Jack can turn back around from the fridge. Her gaze flits to the corner of the room. “Last time I was here I didn’t realize that you had such a large poster of Barbra Streisand.”

  
“Oh.” Jack glances to the poster in question. “Yeah. Funny Girl is like my favorite movie.”

  
Kara clears her throat and gratefully accepts the beer Jack presses into her hand. The bed shifts next to her as he sits, and they stay that way for a moment, quietly nursing their drinks. Jack is picking away at the label of his with his thumb.

  
“Listen, Jack—“

  
“Kara—“

  
They begin at the same time, chuckle, and slip back into silence. “Go ahead.” Jack says, taking another tug of his beer. Kara bobs her head.

  
“I know this is weird. And I just wanted to say I’m sorry—for what happened.” She doesn’t miss Jack’s hard swallow or the way he passes his hand over his mouth. “I know Lena told you.”

  
“She did.”

  
“So I just wanted to make sure you’re okay with talking about me. I would totally understand if you were mad, most people would be—“

  
“Kara, it’s fine—“

  
“—if they had to sit and have a conversation with the woman who their girlfriend cheated on them with—“

  
“—really, I don’t—“

  
“Most guys would be furious, especially because it happened on this bed—“

  
“—I know, and I—“

  
“—on this very bed, your girlfriend had her hands in my pants—“

  
“Kara.” They meet each other’s gaze, challenging. The label on Jack’s beer is hanging on by a single corner. “You know what, I think I need something a little harder than beer.” Without asking, he takes Kara’s half finished drink and sets it with his own on the side table. He reaches down in between his bed and his box spring and produces a flask, which he unscrews, drinks, and offers to Kara. She takes it without hesitation. “I’m guessing you didn’t come here to talk to me about Lena.”

  
“No.” Kara agrees. “I didn’t.”

  
“Lena says I’m a person of interest in your investigation.”

  
“Snitch.” Kara says fondly. She’s smiling and so is Jack.

  
“You know, when we were kids she was really something else.” Jack says, taking another pull off of the flask. Kara regards him with interest, the way he stares off at a fixed point as if the things he’s saying are materializing in front of him. “We used to get drunk under the bleachers, play cards during gym.” He bobs his head. “She’s always had that charisma about her. Could get anybody to do anything.”

  
“Lena’s special. She’s like...golden.” The influence of alcohol is strong behind Kara’s words, but they’re true. Jack is looking at her now, expression inscrutable.

  
“I was with Gordy.” He says. “Both nights. Pi Lam and the golf cart.”

  
“That’s what I thought. But Lena wouldn’t—“

  
“I think you know why she wouldn’t tell you.” He laughs. Something in Kara’s chest seizes and she knows—she knows she’s about to tip over the precipice to truth, or as much of it as she’s going to find out. She feels fear, giddiness. She has the thought that maybe she doesn’t really want to know after all, like the information might be useless in her hands. “Lena’s always been protecting me, ever since we were kids. She’s had a tough go of it.”

  
“I know, yeah.”

  
“No, you don’t.” Kara is startled by the firmness in Jack’s voice. He pauses, recalibrates. “I’m sorry, but whatever you know it’s so much worse than that. She deserves a break.” He nods as if affirming it to himself.

  
“You guys aren’t really dating, are you?” Kara says quietly, hands trembling on her knees. Jack sucks his teeth, nods, and begins to speak.

  
\\\\\

  
“Shit! Fuck!”

  
“Lena?”

  
“Mother fuck—I’ll be right out!”

  
Rolling his eyes, Jack turns away from the open window and back at to the view in front of him; his dirty, calloused feet, and the crowded New York street below. Lena had already teased him about it, calling him Hobbit with an affectionate pass over his new hair, cut down to military perfection.

  
The window shifts and Lena stoops through, plate with a sandwich in one hand. Jack notes that the index finger of her other hand is wrapped in bloodstained toilet paper. His mouth hinges into a grin.

  
“Dinner is served,” Lena says with more flourish necessary for a cheese and tomato sandwich on sourdough. It’s the kind of thing that both of their mothers would have had a stroke if they’d seen them even going near it. “There should only be a little bit of blood.”

  
“Shut up.” Jack laughs, taking the plate and biting off a sizable chunk of sandwich. He hadn’t realized how hungry he’d been, even when Lena had insisted on feeding him. Nobody knew that they were at the Brooklyn house, not his mother, not Lena’s, and there was no house staff or pizza money left, just Lena’s questionable knife skills and whatever leftovers haunted the fridge.

  
Below them, cars honk and traffic flows and people chatter. In their personal bubble on the fire escape, Lena’s hand rubs over the back of Jack’s head and she scratches her nails there. “I kind of like your new haircut.”

  
“All the guys at the ranch had to get it.”  
Lena laughs. “I thought they were supposed to be discouraging you from being gay.”

  
Jack snorts and rolls his eyes, but there’s an unexpected moisture there. He presses the heel of his hand against his forehead. Lena takes the plate from his lap and puts an arm around his shoulders, pulling him to her chest and placing a fierce kiss to the top of his head. “I love you.” She says, a complete sentence. He nods into her chest. “I would do anything for you.”

  
“I know.” His voice is thick with moisture. “I just don’t know how…” he trails off. “I can’t even conceptualize two more years of high school.”

  
“Why don’t we just start with tonight.” Lena rests her cheek against the short, soft hairs at the top of his head. “And take on the rest as it comes.”

  
“Shit.” He sniffs and disengages from her grasp. “I can’t believe I’m crying right now.”

  
“I can. You love to cry.”

  
He slugs her on her shoulder and she wheels back, pretending to be wounded. Just like that, things right themselves, if only imperceptibly. Lena is laughing, head thrown back, feet dangling, and the future stretches out in front of them, full of promise.

  
\\\\\

  
“So it was about you.”

  
“At first.” Jack nods, looking distant. The alcohol is catching up to Kara in increments and she leans heavily against the mattress behind her.

  
“Does anybody else—“

  
“Albie and Maeve guessed a while ago. Other than that, no.” In her pocket, there’s something vibrating—it takes her several minutes to realize it’s her phone. Lena’s name flashes on the screen.

  
“Kara.” Jack says, and she realizes that he’s noticed Lena calling her as well. “Give her a break. She wasn’t lying to you on purpose. She was trying to protect me.” Kara’s phone stops, indicates she has 4 other missed calls from Lena. She doesn’t notice. “I’m just tired of being another reason that she’s so unhappy. I know she wants to be with you. So you should be together.”

  
Stunned, Kara looks at the phone cupped in her hand. Her body is vibrating, creating it’s own wavelength, Jack’s words a strange kind of conduit. The screen lights up again. She hits accept call before it can ring a second time.

  
“Hello?” Kara knows she’s drunk and tries to steady her voice accordingly. Beside her, Jack snickers into his hand and she shoots him a glare.

  
“Where are you? I thought we were getting dinner tonight.” Even over the static connection, Kara can tell that Lena is perturbed, and rightfully so—they’d made dinner plans for right after what Kara had hoped would be a short meeting with Jack. Glancing at the clock, Kara realizes it’s nearly been three hours. She swears and stands up, cradling the phone between her cheek and shoulder.

“Wait, are you with Jack?”

  
“How did you—“ Kara’s brow furrows and she angles the phone back to mouth what the heck to Jack, who only shrugs.

  
“A woman knows.” Lena says dryly.

  
“I’m so sorry, Lena. I lost track of time. Where are you?”

  
“At Delta Chi. I thought you might be with Albie and Maeve.”

  
“Okay, stay put. I’m headed over.” She hangs up the phone without waiting for an answer and begins to scramble around the room for her parka and bag. Once found, she tries to put them on at the same time with limited success. There are strange, parallel threads running through her; relief at knowing the truth, the excitement of being right, of not knowing what the future holds but sensing it’s something positive.

  
When she finally wrestles on her jacket and subdues her backpack, Kara notices that Jack is smiling at her. “I would tell you not to go out there all half cocked, but.” Something twinkles at the edges of his eyes. “Maybe that’s exactly what you need to do.”

  
Kara smiles back, and stoops down to gather all six feet of him into a warm hug. She presses her cheek into his.

“Thank you.” She says. “For everything.”

  
“Don’t mention it.” Jack pulls back, holding her at arm's length. “I mean that. This can’t get out to anybody.”

  
Kara makes a lips zipped motion as she hurries out the door of his room and down the stairs, her socked feet making a muted pattering noise. She bids goodbye to the boys by the door as she toes on her shoes and makes headway out into the cold night in front of her.

  
The first frigid blast of air sobers her, and by the end of her five minute walk to Delta Chi she’s feeling steadier on her feet, but still humming with excited energy. After reaching the front door, she pivots to do another lap around the block and parcel out what she’s going to say to Lena when she finds her. It also gives her time to consider everything Jack’s just told her. After two laps, she knocks on the door and walks quickly past two stunned looking sisters explaining her presence away over one shoulder.

  
Kara considers her preplanned speech while she bounds upstairs and down the hallway. With this in mind, instead of opening the door smoothly as intended Kara ends up slamming it against the opposing wall and coming face to face with three very stunned looking women.  
Albie is sitting at her desk, chewing gum and reading _Time_ magazine, and Lena and Maeve are huddled over a cell phone looking at something. They’re all startled when the door thumps, and Kara herself is suddenly at a loss. All of her attention is zeroed in on Lena, looking pretty in a green cotton dress with her hair down and swept over one shoulder. Her lips are parted and soft-looking, and Kara’s entire mind goes blank and her mouth dry.

  
Nobody says anything for an excruciating 10 seconds as Kara uselessly works her jaw around words that won’t come out. All of the things she’d prepared in her head for this moment had apparently been ejected somewhere between the front door of the house and here.

  
“Kara,” Lena says haltingly.

  
“You’re gay.” Kara whisper-shouts. In the background, Maeve’s gum falls from her mouth to the floor and Albie stands up.

  
“Okay, I think that’s our cue to go.”

Maeve stands as well and they both make a beeline to the bedroom door, only to be halted by Kara and Lena both saying Stop in unison. They freeze in place.

  
“What are you talking about?”

  
“You’re gay.” Kara says with more confidence. “And Jack’s gay too, you’re both super gay.”

  
There’s a sound like water buffalo stampeding as Albie and Maeve muscle past Kara with their heads ducked like they’re escaping a bomb blast, slamming the door behind them. This time, Kara and Lena hardly notice, focused on each other with laser precision. Lena takes a step forward.

  
“He had no right to tell you that.” She says lowly. “And you have no right to come in here and throw it in my face.”

  
Kara takes a step forward, challenging. “He didn’t have to tell me, I already knew. He just confirmed it.”

  
“Well then what the fuck,” Lena’s voice is getting louder and she takes yet another step into Kara’s space, putting them a scarce foot apart. “Is up with all this bullshit, you sticking your boobs in my face, trying to go on a date with Lena—“

  
“You wouldn’t tell me!” Kara hisses. “And you’re one to talk, you were gonna wear this dress? To the dining hall?” They’re close enough now that Kara can grab a handful of the cotton fabric and tug on it, propelling Lena the last few inches into her chest. “Gimme a freaking break—“

  
Their mouths crash together, already open, with enough ferocity that their teeth knock on first contact. Kara wraps her arms around Lena’s waist and Lena’s arms fly around Kara’s shoulders and they mould their bodies together as they stumble backwards with the force of it. Kara feels her shoulder hit the door before she propels off, still holding Lena against her body and stumbling through the middle of the room until they make purchase on the desk. It’s relief and a new, painful tension all at once. After so many years of overthinking every action and nervous tick it’s an uncanny feeling to have her body working on autopilot.

  
“I can’t believe you.” Kara gasps, tearing her mouth away even as Lena tries to pull her back. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. All this time and could have been doing this.”

  
Lena successfully pulls her back to her mouth, silencing her. Kara helps Lena slip on top, in the process disrupting textbooks and stacks of paper that go spiraling to the floor. Lena sucks against Kara’s lower lip and urges her hands from her waist to the bare skin of her knee, Kara grunts, grips her there, and mouths her way from Lena’s mouth to her cheek to the valley of her neck and shoulder, sucking.

  
For an unbroken moment, the only sounds in the room are heavy breathing, the wet movement of Kara’s lips and tongue, Lena’s nonsensical murmuring as she cradles Kara’s head close. She slides down, angling her hips up, and moving her center flush against the front of Kara’s jeans. Kara’s hands shift also, skimming up from Lena’s knee to the skin of her upper thigh and then further still.

  
Her fingers are against the cleft of Lena’s thigh and the damp fabric of her underwear before she realizes what she’s done. Lena emits a moan and clutches Kara closer, rolling her hips against Kara’s fingers and pressing her mouth, open and panting, against the tangled and frizzy crown of her head.

  
She feels sparse, coarse hairs, skin so soft it’s almost chalky-feeling and the elastic band of Lena’s panties creating a flimsy border between her eager touch and every wanting thing that lies beyond. The tip of Kara’s index finger breaks away from the rest and tests the waters, pulling back the elastic just so.

  
As if a flip has been switched, Lena becomes frenzied. She pulls Kara’s face from her shoulder and Kara comes, only a little unwilling to leave the warmth where she’d been buried. Lena kisses her again, fiercely, moving Kara’s face against her own with both hands planted on her cheeks.

  
Kara sighs into the warmth of the contact and moves her lips against Lena’s, more practiced than the first time. She feels a sense of bewildered loss when Lena moves her face away and blinks several times to clear the fog of arousal. When she does, Lena is staring at her with bright and unfocused eyes. Dazed, she drags her thumb along the seam of Kara’s lips and sucks in a breath when Kara parts her mouth to lick at the tip.

  
“Bed.” Lena urges her, breathless. Kara blinks. “Kara, to the bed.” She moves her hands from their place cupping Kara’s face to grab at the waist of her pants. Her bottom slides off the desk and she pivots, tugging a pliant Kara along with her, the blonde leaning forward to chase the ghost of their last kiss. When the back of Lena’s knees bump against the foot of Albie’s bed she switches their position, pressing Kara until she’s lying back and moving to hover over her, legs snug around her hips.

  
Lena tilts forward and Kara finds herself curtained under the fragrant length of her dark hair. Lena kisses her, bites against her mouth like a ripe peach, palms at her breast over her shirt roughly. Emboldened and turned on to the point of recklessness, Kara touches and then squeezes at the expanse of her thigh exposed by her rucked up dress. As Lena places sloppy, open mouthed kisses along her cheeks, forehead, and mouth, Kara’s hand migrates back around to rub at the now familiar divot at her thigh. A high-pitched, keening noise breaks free of Lena and her mouth stills, agape and pressed against Kara’s right cheek. Kara can feel warm puffs of breath, hear the high-pitched intonation behind each sigh, and presses past her own insecurity to tug more firmly at the hem of Lena’s panties.

  
She’s so wet that the fabric has been rendered useless—twisted and sodden, it shifts to the side with only a little persuasion. Kara’s stomach twists deliciously in response, and when her fingers make contact with wet flesh the string in her lower stomach tightens to an almost painful tautness.

  
Kara pauses there, stunned. She leaves her fingers resting so gently against Lena’s clit that she wonders for a moment if she can feel it at all. This question is answered when Lena huffs impatiently and pitches her hips downward, resulting in firmer contact and causing them both to moan. Kara breathes raggedly, keeps her fingers still and trembles as Lena drags her hips back up and over her.

  
The sound Lena makes in her ear is one that Kara will be recreating in her mind for years, alone at night, standing in the shower with her palm cupped between her legs. She feels it like Lena’s own hand reaching down and rubbing against her, it’s acute, it’s wonderful, it’s enough to make Kara’s fingers move if just to elicit that noise one more time. It works. Lena cries out against her, a mix of frustration and joy, and meets her movement with a jog of her own hips.  
Lena is murmuring something else, not a sigh or a moan, but something more familiar. Kara realizes it’s her name. She tilts her head towards her mouth, shivers when her lips brush the lobe of her ear, and listens, her fingers moving the whole time.

  
“Kara.” God. “I want your fingers inside of me, please.”

  
Kara tilts her head all the way to the side and peers at Lena who looks back at her, brazen. Her hair is mussed, lips swollen, a fresh hickey blooming against the side of her neck.

  
“I’ve never—“ She pauses, surprised by the toughness of her own voice. “I’m not sure I’m doing this right.”

  
Lena chuckles. “You’re doing it right. But if you want to stop—“

  
“No. I want to keep going.”

  
Lips upturned, Lena covers Kara’s hand with her own and moves it down until her fingers are resting against her entrance. “Start with two.” She murmurs. “I’ll tell you if I want more.”

  
Kara’s fingers slide into her easily—it only takes one jerky movement of Lena’s hips to bury her inside. For Kara, it feels as if she’s suspended there for an eternity, held under the peculiar weight of Lena’s hips, her body, kissing her open-mouthed and intimate. In reality, as she realizes later, it probably all amounts to about a minute and a half—the bed squeaking fiercely under their bodies, Lena grinding down in an erratic until she seizes and comes quietly with her mouth open and her hands tangled in the fabric of Kara’s shirt.

  
After all the commotion, the silence that follows is impenetrable. Lena remains on top of Kara, straddling her, and Kara remains two fingers buried inside of her. Lena’s face is tucked against Kara’s, breath becoming hot bursts against her cheek, and one of her hands stroking along the opposite temple.

  
Kara’s attention is split between the popcorn ceiling above her and the smaller woman gathered in her arms. As the bravado of their sexual encounter begins to wear off, it’s replaced by a savage nervousness. Lena is so quiet that Kara wonders if she’s fallen asleep—or so disappointed that she can’t bear to look at her. Kara pinkens.

  
“Lena?” She whispers. The woman stirs, humming. It sounds like honey. Kara glances at her and sees her face shrouded by a halo of messy hair.

  
“What’s the matter?” The hand that’s been stroking her temple moves through comb through Kara’s hair, scratching her scalp. “Kara?”

  
“Was that, uh—was I doing anything wrong?” Lena’s weight shifts on top of her and within a second they’re face to face. She’s quiet. “Oh my God, it was that bad, wasn’t it?” Kara finds herself pinned under Lena’s searching look, her eyes clear and furrowed, and her heart picks up when Lena presses a soft kiss to her mouth, her chin, and her cheeks. Her eyes slip closed under the attentions.

  
“Oh, Kara.” Lena murmurs, repeats it like prayer, quiet and reverent. “You were wonderful. You were wonderful. You precious thing.”

Kara’s heart soars. _You precious thing_ she says again, places an amorous kiss to the cut of her jaw, and shifts her hips. They both moan. Kara moves her fingers again experimentally and feels Lena’s hips jog in response coupled with another low moan. That tight string in the low of Kara’s belly is back, as if she’d never been sated at all, exacerbated by Lena’s soft murmuring as she begins to bear down on Kara’s hand with more intent. Words like precious and wonderful and _Kara_ slip through. The bed groans beneath them, increasing with the pace of their thrusts. This time, when Lena comes, it’s with a quiet shout lost in the pillow beneath Kara’s head.

  
The door shakes not moments after. “I know you guys aren’t in there fucking on my bed.” Albie’s muffled voice says. “I’m going to give you the benefit of doubt right now but if you are I hope ya’ll are ready to wash my sheets.”

  
///

  
The next scene happens like this: Lena is sitting on the washing machine in the basement of Delta Chi, Albie’s sheets thrashing around beneath her, and one hand aloft holding a cigarette out of a small window near the ceiling. She looks radiant, messy. Her hair is out of sorts and the hickey has blossomed into something deep and red. Still, she smiles at Kara, catching her staring. She looks at her with gentle eyes.

  
“This is my last one, I promise.” She says, referring to the cigarette. It’s both true and not true. With movies bestowing the mixed pleasure of foresight, Kara can see all of the future cigarettes at the places where their lives will continue to intertwine; in the car after a hard day at work, on her wedding day before she allows Jack to help her step into her dress, after hanging up the phone with her mother, a year from now, in a moment of weakness. But for now, it’s as about honest as statements can come. Kara smiles back, and reaches for her.

  
They don’t talk much. Not in the laundry room, not when they’ve re-made Albie’s bed for her, laughing, and not when they walk back to the dorm together. In the room, in the dark, Kara toes off her shoes and allows Lena to divest her of her other articles of clothing, piece by piece, until she’s naked and shivering. She trembles for altogether other reasons when Lena leans over to suck one of her nipples into her mouth, laving her tongue over it before releasing it with a wet pop. Kara grasps again at the fabric of her dress and hoists it over Lena’s head before guiding her back and laying both of them down on the narrow length of her twin bed.

  
“Kara.” Lena says between kisses, resting in the cradle of Kara’s hips. “Are you planning on taking your socks off anytime soon?”

  
Kara blinks back at her, owlish. “But I’m cold.”

  
The socks stay on. Kara watches with great interest as Lena looks for a hair tie on her side dresser and sits on her knees, tossing her hair into a sloppy bun. When she’s finished, she rests one hand on Kara’s lower belly as if she can sense the coiled heat there. Kara shifts her thighs together, feeling the slickness of them.

  
“You okay?” She asks. Kara licks her lips.

  
“I’m perfect.”

  
The first contact of Lena’s tongue against her tickles; Kara bucks and sighs. Lena’s head pops up from between her legs and—okay, that’s a sight she can see herself getting used to very, very quickly. “Just tickles.”

  
The next stroke is firmer and more sure. A strangled moan claws its way out of Kara’s throat and one hand flings out to slap against the wall. What was that book called, _The Agony and the Ecstasy_? That feels like an apt description. Who wrote it anyway? Lena sucks her clit between her lips and flicks her tongue over the tip, slow, resulting in another breathy moan.

  
_Wait, am I moaning too much?_ Kara’s eyes fly open. She struggles to remain fixated on the wet sensation of Lena working her over with her tongue; all she can think about is how wet she is, and are people supposed to get that wet? It’s kind of like, all over her thighs. But what proportion of that is Lena’s spit, technically?

  
“Kara?” Lena’s stopped, her head again poking up from between Kara’s thighs. “You went quiet.”

  
“Oh, um.” Kara flushes in the dark. “I’m fine, I just—“ But Lena is already crawling up her body, draping herself over Kara’s side. “I kind of get lost in my head sometimes. Sorry.”

  
“Don’t be sorry.” Lena murmurs. She sounds tired. One finger is tracing lazy patterns into Kara’s chest. “Did you like it? Do you want me to keep going?”

  
“I loved it. But maybe not tonight.”

  
“We can try it again any time.” Kara can feel Lena’s eyelashes fluttering against the side of her breast. She kisses her forehead.

  
“Go to sleep.” She says. “I can tell you’re tired.”

  
Lena does. Her breath evens out over a matter of minutes, and Kara follows not long behind.

  
\\\\\

  
“Oh my God.” Kara reaches to check her phone. It’s 4 AM. Lena is still sound asleep beside her, drooling on the pillow, a pleasant reminder that last night was not a dream. Kara doesn’t dwell on sentiment for very long. She shakes Lena’s shoulder until she stirs. “Lena, wake up. I think I figured it out.”

  
Lena groans and scrunches up her face. Adorable. Again, Kara doesn’t dwell. “Is there an emergency? What’s going on?”

  
“No emergency.” Kara whispers fiercely. “It’s Ann Rule.”

  
“Ann who?”

  
“Ann Rule. That book you got me, The Stranger Beside Me.”

  
“Remind me to never buy you books again.” Kara scarcely hears her, already crawling out of bed. Lena sits up on her elbows, watching as Kara throws open her laptop and squints into the bright light.

  
“Ann Rule spent a whole part of her professional career looking for the man who was murdering young, dark haired women in Seattle only to have it be none other than Ted Bundy, her friend and colleague at the suicide hotline. The person she would least suspect.” The printer on her desk starts to crank something out. “Do you know what I’m getting at?”

  
“The vandal is Ted Bundy.”

  
“No!” Kara snatches the paper out of the printer and tacks it to her suspect board, next to Lena’s A. It’s a picture of Ted Bundy. “But I think I know who it is. And if I’m right, I know when they’re going to strike again.”

  
She makes the mistake of glancing back up to Lena, still propped on her elbows in the bed. The blanket is slipping down, exposing the tops of her breasts, and she’s chewing on her bottom lip. “As sexy as it is to watch you crack your case in nothing but a pair of ankle socks,” She says. “Why don’t you come back to bed for a little while and we’ll sort it in the morning.”

  
Kara gulps and allows Lena to pull her into bed and cover her body with her own. Tomorrow begins to feel like her best bet.


	6. six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Steve Buschemi? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Maggie?”

“Oh, hey, Kara. Come in.” Kara comes fully out from behind the door, best khakis on and cardigan affixed to her frame. Maggie is taking a harried sip from a styrofoam cup as she shuffles a mountain of paperwork to the side. The mess only increases every time Kara enters her office. “I was just thinking I could use a break.”

“Good. Paperwork got you down?”

“It’s this goddamn vandal. The school wants to press charges so I’m ass-deep in legal briefs.” Another sip from the cup. Kara sniffs and notices the whole office smells like burned coffee. She wonders how long Maggie has been cooped up. “So, sit down.”

On reflection, it could’ve been weird that Maggie and her sister were dating. But Maggie was filling both of her roles so seamlessly that Kara couldn’t bring herself to be bothered by it. She sits in the chair and returns Maggie’s easy smile, reflecting on her good fortune. “Sorry to barge in, but I wanted to get your advice on something. I can’t talk to Alex about it.”

“I’m all ears, bud.”

“I lost my virginity last week.” Maggie spit takes her sip of coffee into the wastebin by her desk. “Do you need a napkin?”

“No, no I’m—I’m sorry, you lost your what?”

“My virginity. To Lena. On Albie’s bed.”

“God, I actually don’t know if I’m qualified to talk to you about this.” Maggie rubs her forehead. “Wait, on who’s bed? You guys know that you have two perfectly good beds in your dorm right?”

“Oh, we’ve done it there too. Lots of times.”

In the long stretch of silence that follows, Maggie picks her cup up, sets it down, leans forward in her chair, stands up, and sits again. She opens her mouth twice to say something but closes it. Kara waits with her hands folded in her lap for her to settle with only a slight grimace on her face. She figures it’s the best she’ll get. “So...what? Do you need advice on protection or something?”

Kara knits her brow. “Did we need to use protection?”

“Yes? No. Actually, I don’t know. Why can’t you talk to Alex about this again? I feel like our imbalanced power dynamic makes this weird.”

“I don’t feel weird. Do you feel weird?” Maggie shrugs. “I just want to know--I feel so different, when I’m with her. And like I want to be with her all the time. And that I want to tell her all the weird stuff about me, like that I don’t have a joint in my left big toe. Or that I puked after I read the Torah on my Bat Mitzvah.”

“That’s normal.” Maggie says. “That’s completely normal, Kara. You had sex with her. That’s a big deal.”

This is something Kara had suspected all along. She tries to embrace her feelings in all their sloppy glory, the way her chest expands when Lena is inside her, the way her thoughts quiet into nothing when they sit together on her bed. But Lena hasn’t said anything, and Lena reveals nothing of herself except a giggle when Kara traces the outline of her shitty tattoo with a finger. Fantasies of being told I think about you all the time or be my girlfriend ping-pong in Kara’s brain from the moment she wakes up in the morning until she finds herself flat on her back on Lena’s bed. “You think?”

“I know. Look,” Setting her coffee cup to the side, Maggie leans forward on her elbows. “Sex is a whole thing. Everybody is going to tell you it’s not a thing, but it is. It’s a thing. And it’s cool to feel a way about a person who’s having sex with you. Does that make sense?”

“Kind of.”

“If you feel like you and Lena might not be on the same page, talk to her about it. It’s well within your rights.”

“Thanks, officer.”

“You’re welcome.” Maggie sits back in her chair, looking pleased and less queasy than before. “Do you have any other jarring questions to ask? I wasn’t kidding about needing a break.”

The paperwork on her desk is almost as tall as Maggie herself. Kara feels a tug of sympathy as she takes her head, noticing how the other woman lets her shoulders sag. There’s guilt there, too, twisting knots in her stomach. “That was pretty much it, sorry.”

  
“You were investigating this case, right? For your thing?”

“I was, but,” A complicated storm of emotions rolls through Kara’s body as she chooses her next words. “I hit a dead end and I’m considering changing the direction of the story.”

“So no idea who did it, huh?”

Kara shakes her head and shrugs at the same time. “None at all.”  
___

Spring in Oregon has the kind of distinct smell that you could distill into a candle. Douglas fir, ocean salt, charred wood, big sky. No matter where you were in the state, a roadside gas station or a street corner in Portland, you could catch a waft of it. To Kara it smells like collecting sand dollars on the beach with her hair whipping around her or finding a secret swimming hole with Alex and not worrying about who might come and see in a bathing suit.

Tonight, in the staff parking lot behind the kinesiology building, it smells like victory. It’d taken surprisingly little to get a handle on the comings and goings of Coach Tate, what his car looked like, and what days he stayed late to teach a night weightlifting class. It took even less to find out what Winn and James were supposedly doing that night: hanging out at the rugby house and working on his science project. Kara didn’t usually pride herself on her organizational skills but that evening was the product of meticulous guesswork.

Kara takes a sip out of her thermos and rolls up the sleeve of her shirt to check her watch. Half past 7. The weightlifting class is done at 8, giving the vandals 30 minutes to show up if they were going to at all. She holds her private belief that they will, but she still hasn’t mentioned it to anybody, including Lena, for fear of being discouraged.

Part of her hopes that they don’t show up. If they do, she has some thick skulls to knock together, and Lena had made some interesting promises if she got back to the dorm by 8:30. But once she’d seen the big picture, there was no unseeing it. Winn’s science project that went on for months but never seemed to bear a result. The close relationship between Pi Lam and the rugby team, which might reasonably mean that James would have known who would be out of town the night the house was trashed.

She thinks of the night of the Dorm Bash, the intensity of Winn and James as they hovered around her and Dan. Like most of the dots she’s connecting, it was inconsequential then but full of consequence now. Kara is biting at the pad of her thumb, contemplating, when footsteps start to approach from behind her. Being that the parking lot is behind the building and poorly lit, there’s very little foot traffic. It could be a professor or a student coming off of night class, but when Kara turns her head she sees two figures in dark hoodies approaching out from the bushes.

Dramatic much? She rolls her eyes. If she wasn’t certain that her hunch was right before, the sheer absurdity of their outfits has her pretty much convinced. Not taking notice of her, the figures make a beeline down the row of cars in front of Kara and towards Coach Tate’s sensible Toyota.

“Hey idiots!” Kara yells. Both figures freeze in place, mid step, and turn their heads. They’re far away, but Kara could recognize those twin looks of terror from outer space with her glasses off. “Looking for a car to vandalize, you big dummies?” It sounded cooler in her head, but Kara rolls with it. She slips off her perch and walks over to where her friends stand, slipping their hoods off and stammering their way around a ham-fisted excuse.

“We were just—“

“—surprise rugby practice—”

“—my mom got us matching hoodies—”

Kara is spared from further stammering when two cans of spray paint tumble from Winn’s pocket with a metallic crash, rolling down the pavement at their feet. It’s quiet as the can comes to a stop on the tire of a car and Winn and James stare, open mouthed and caught.

“We can explain.” James says. They find themselves in the small cafeteria of the on-campus 7/11, Winn and James taking their time talking around the main point of their story. Dan Maplethorpe-Armstrong is a serial harasser, has been since they were freshman, but no amount of inquests from the campus safety board could keep him down. Six pledges from Pi Lam have been hospitalized since 2010, but the only action taken by the school is to send them to a seminar and then renew their affiliation.

“There’s no justice in it.” James argues, pausing and glancing over his shoulder when somebody enters and walks past them into the convenience store. “Coach was going to get away with it too. Nobody cares, Kara.” Winn is quiet, hands folded on the table, not meeting Kara’s eye.

“What about the golf cart?” Kara hisses. “She never did anything to anybody!”

“We wanted to throw you off.” Winn admits. “And James was at all of those budget meetings with Officer Sawyer. He knew you guys needed a new one. We figured it was win-win.”

  
“Well, it wasn’t.” There’s a headache brewing behind Kara’s temples and she rubs them, eyes shut. “This whole thing is lose-lose. Do you guys know how much trouble you could be in? The school wants to press charges. You have to cut this stuff out. The only thing you’ve done so far is break some windows and make Officer Sawyer’s job harder. And mine.”

To their credit, Winn and James look hangdog at that. Kara exhales, feeling an agitating sense of sympathy for them. She of all people knows what it’s like to get in over your head. There’s a dual sense of understanding and frustration battling inside of her, a similar compass for justice and a maternal urge to scold them for being so stupid and reckless. Eliza had told her once that she was glad that she’d never had sons. Kara is starting to understand the sentiment.

“You’re not going to…” Winn begins in a small voice. Neither him nor James are looking her in the eye. Kara shakes her head.

“No. Of course not. I’ll figure something out for the article. But you guys have to promise to never do anything like this again.” Kara thinks for a moment. “Also you have to buy me one slurpee each for my time and trouble.”

At the slurpee machine, amidst the foreground of circular moving slush, James and Winn put their arms around her. They buy her a bag of peanut butter pretzels and eat them with her on the steps of her dorm, talking about nothing and enjoying the warming evening weather. Kara has a thousand questions to ask but senses that now isn’t the time to ask them, not when Winn is talking in his animated way about visiting Seattle with his dad for Spring Break and James is doing his Jerry Springer impression. Even with the specter of things to come hanging over them—just because Kara isn’t turning them in doesn't mean they’ll never be caught—it’s easy to relax into the rhythm of their conversation. She thinks of Lena, waiting for her in the dorm, and smiles to herself.  
___

Enigmatic as she is, Lena has certain cracks in her veil, just like everybody else. Kara finds that it’s easier to wriggle her fingers through those openings when they’re in bed together, just the two of them, talking. She drops kernels of pertinent information as if they’re nothing, leaving Kara scrambling to bring the threads together into something cohesive.

“I once was almost kidnapped from my elementary school by a leftist terrorist organization.” She says, after Kara’s just fucked her from behind on her twin mattress and she’s glowing from it. “They wanted to hold me for ransom. Good for them that it didn’t work out, my mom wouldn’t have paid a dime of her money to get me back.”

“You know, my mom once said she’d rather see me die in a nunnery than end up married to a woman.” She laughs one night, pinned under Kara’s body weight. “As if I would survive a day as a nun.”

“I have to visit my brother in prison on spring break.” Is what she drops after a record-breaking Wednesday night string of orgasms. “He’s in supermax at Lincoln Correctional. Can you hand me a Jolly Rancher? A purple one?”

Kara has urges to pin Lena down in bed and make her talk about it, connect the dots for her. There’s no holding her down, though, and not much has changed. There’s still a party to go to, Albie and Maeve banging down their door to get hangover pancakes from Goldie’s. Sometimes Kara goes, sometimes she doesn’t. She’s content enough to bask in Lena’s glow, waiting for the moment when something solidifies between them. Maggie was right. It’s okay for Kara to have feelings for Lena, and someday soon she’ll express them and ask her to be girlfriends.

Not today, though. Saturday night and Lena is pulling on her high waisted jeans, tucking a T-shirt in, and throwing on a cardigan. Her hair is in a messy crown of braids, fingernails polished dark blue, applying chapstick while she checks her phone. She’s demure in her stocking feet, lovely and petite. Kara wants to swallow her up, or keep her in that moment, suspended in amber. “Are you sure you have to go?”

“Positive, sweetheart.” Lena smiles up at her, warm as the sun. “Are you sure you don’t want to come? I’m sure Albie and Maeve would love to see you. Jack’s been asking about you, too.”

“I have to finish the article, and then I picked up a shift on the cart. I really think tonight’s the night it gets done.”

“My own personal Hardy Boy.” Lena coos, and walks over to press a sticky kiss to Kara’s cheek. It makes Kara’s whole body vibrate. “Don’t work too hard. Text me if you want to come after you get off work.”

Kara walks into the Campus Safety building that night whistling a tune. The article is pivoted and finished. Lena is at a party somewhere thinking about her, which she knows because she’d sent a text with these words: thinking of you, and a heart, and a golf cart emoji. Maggie shakes her head when Kara snatches the keys from her desk and skips out the door, not complaining about the new cart for the first time since they’d gotten it.

The night clips along at a brisk pace. Kara gets plenty of breaks to park the cart behind a tree somewhere, sip her hot cocoa, and re-read Lena’s texts. She feels jittery, and even though it’s only been a few hours since they saw each other, Kara goes to Lena’s Instagram. Her story is typical for a Saturday night: shots of her in the mirror of their room at Delta getting ready with Albie and Maeve, Jack shotgunning a beer in a shower stall while Gordy stands behind him laughing, and the revelment of a college party gone well. The fourth is a Boomerang, and Kara can’t figure exactly what’s happening for a few seconds. It plays again and again, the same few jilted seconds, of Lena and Jack in an embrace in the front yard of Delta. Lena laughs, then she grabs his face and pulls him down for a kiss.

Kara watches it. She watches it until it starts to blur together in her vision, a tide of bitterness rising in her stomach at each new detail noticed. Logically, she knows there’s no reason to be jealous, but there’s something about it; the assembled crowd of onlookers who raise up in a frozen cheer as they kiss, the look of happiness in Lena’s face when she peers up at him. It makes the voice of reason in Kara’s head saying it’s just for show quiet and the stab in her gut feel more acute.

She almost doesn’t realize that she’s driven to Delta until she hears her name called out amidst a crowd on the front lawn. It’s Albie, waving, and Lena beside her brightening. She turns to her group of friends and says something before half-walking, half-stumbling down to where Kara sits in the cart. The closer she is, the more Kara can tell that she’s wasted. When she slides in next to her on the bench, Kara can smell the alcohol on her person and see the glassy blown-out state of her pupils. Usually she would find it endearing. Tonight it makes her angry.

“Hi, sweetheart.” Lena says, slurred. Kara pinches her thigh through the fabric of her khakis, hard. “I’m so happy to see you.”

“Um.” Kara adjusts her glasses, looking forward down the road. She ignores Lena sliding up closer to her, trying to find a point of connection for their bodies. “Can we talk?”

“Sure. Why don’t you come inside and let me make you a drink first--hey, is something wrong?”

“I saw that Boomerang of you kissing Jack.” Kara turns to look at her, and Lena’s look of confusion makes the knife in her gut twist harder. “Why would you do that?”

  
“So people think he’s my boyfriend?” She says with astonishing coolness, punctuated with a hiccup. “What, are you mad?”

Kara pinches herself again. “Kinda. I just thought--”  
“Thought what?” Lena moves her hands from where they were creeping over to touch Kara and keeps them crossed over her chest. “What did you think?”

“I mean, we were--we’ve been--”

“Kara.” Lena begins in a voice that’s already breaking Kara’s heart, making her want to leave and bury herself so deep in her bed that she can’t ever be found again. She stares at her lap instead of looking at Lena, unable to face the pity in her voice. “We’ve been sleeping together, we’re not--you’re not my girlfriend. It can’t be like that.” She sounds regretful about it, at least. “I’m sorry, I thought you knew. I shouldn’t have assumed--”

“But why not?” Kara hates her voice for betraying her in the way that it cracks. “Why can’t it be like that? I thought you liked me.”

“I do like you. I like you so much.” Lena reaches out again but Kara rebuffs her, jerking her shoulder away. “We don’t have to stop what we’re doing, Kara, we can just…”

  
“But you’ll still do that.” Kara sniffs, horrified to feel tears welling in the corners of her eyes. “Kiss him and make everybody think that you love him.”

“But I like you. Isn’t that enough? Please don’t cry.” It’s too late, Kara’s already worked herself up and big, salty tears are running down her cheeks. Humiliation pulses in her veins and fills her with the nasty urge to hurt Lena. She wants to throw something in her face, tear her down, make her feel the way Kara is feeling. She shakes with the barely contained nastiness of it.

“God, I can’t believe I let myself think that this would work out.” She laughs mirthlessly and wipes at her eyes. The poison in her begins to take a physical shape. “You’re still just such a spoiled fucking mess. I should have known better.” The regret is instantaneous and chilling. It’s like as soon as the spirit of pettiness passes through her it’s gone, leaving her empty and watching as Lena recoils as if Kara’s struck her.

She’s crying too then, face red with the effort of trying to contain it. It’s the worst possible thing. Without saying another word, Lena stumbles out of the cart and nearly falls to her knees on the grass below. “Lena, wait. I shouldn’t have said that, I didn’t mean it.” Gathering herself, she makes her way back to the yard where Albie and Maeve are looking on, concerned.

Kara watches her brush them off and shuffle back into the house. Maeve follows Lena and Albie comes down towards the cart, face twisted in consternation. She only has to take one look at Kara’s face, covered in tears and snot, before she’s joining her together on the bench and soothing her with the offer of cigarettes and alcohol. Kara drives her to her special spot behind a copse of trees and tells her everything between nips off of a flask and drags of a cigarette. When her shift is up, Albie waits for her while she deposits her keys in the mailbox of the Campus Safety building and they make their way together into downtown.

“Two shots, please.” Albie announces before they’ve properly sat down at Dirty Frank’s. “Jamo. Thanks.”

“Let me see what you got.” Mike says skeptically. Kara is drunk enough that she’s able to see the humor in Albie opening her wallet with flourish, presenting two IDs. “Okay, we have...Shannon Polanski, 43, of Tampa Springs. Is that you?” He gestures to Kara, who shrugs and tries to tamp down a giggle. “And...Steve Buschemi. Are you kidding me?”

“Just get us the drinks, please. My dad works for the health department. I tire of this song and dance routine.”

One shot turns into two. Albie is an effective sounding board, able to provide the right response at any given moment, seeing and validating Kara’s distress. Kara’s feelings only get more liquid as the night goes on, pouring out of her without the dam of sobriety. With her second whiskey ginger of the night clutched in one hand and Albie’s fingers in the other, Kara lets her thoughts come to her and then releases them into the world.

“She’s just so stupid.” Kara slurs, waving the whiskey ginger and almost smacking Mike in the face. “Like, who does that?”

  
“You’re so right.” Albie nods. “Lena is such an idiot.”

“Don’t say that about her! Lena is perfect.”

“Okay, angel.” Albie says, and gestures for their next round.

By her third drink it starts to feel suffocating in the bar. Albie follows her as she stumbles outside, riding the line between drunk and nauseous, and collapses onto the front step. She can hear the other woman asking her for her phone as if through several layers of glass and hands it to her without looking up from where her head is buried in her lap. Off to the side, Albie makes a phone call, although Kara can’t hear the specifics. Her stomach is turning. The situation becomes urgent for a matter of seconds. Not wanting to leave a mess for whoever would have to clean it up, Kara lifts her head and tears at her cardigan.

“Are you okay?”

“‘M gonna puke.” Kara mumbles. Just thinking of it, she looks up with squinting eyes. “My arm is jacked up. It’s fine though.” She wretches forward and empties her stomach into the cradle of her cardigan. She can feel Albie next to her, holding her hair back, and a gust of air as the bar door opens and a group of boisterous undergrads spill out onto the street next to them. They sit together like that for what feels like hours, Albie rubbing soothing circles into her back, not saying much.

“It’s going to be okay, you know. She knows you’re sorry.”

“But will you make sure, though?” There’s a car coming up on the street that Kara recognizes. “I didn’t mean to say it.”

“Your sister is here. C’mon. Don’t you wanna throw that sweater in the trash?”

“No!”

The next morning she wakes up to 10 messages from Albie and Maeve asking if she’s dead and exactly none from Lena. Alex assures her that she threw the puke sweater away and doesn’t comment on how red and puffy her face is, nor does she ask any questions when Kara asks if she can stay at her apartment until spring break. Around 10 Kara sends the first of what will be peace-offering messages to Lena:

Kara [10:02]: I’m so sorry. Can we talk?

Alex makes a valiant effort to distract her though a “spontaneous” movie night but Kara still checks her phone every 10 minutes, chest clenched in anxiety. When the response finally comes, her heart plummets into her stomach.

Lena [9:12]. I know. I just need some time.  
___  
“Keira.” Professor Grant doesn’t look up from her laptop. “You’re late.”

“I know.” Kara sighs, flustered. She hustles into the cramped newsroom office and sits down in front of the desk, dropping her multitude of things. “I’ve been commuting in from Gresham because my roommate and I--actually, you don’t care, do you?” Cat casts her eyes up and shakes her head almost imperceptibly. “Right. Sorry.”

“If you’re finished, I’d like to discuss your article.”

  
“Of course.” Kara adjusts her glasses. “What, uh, what did you think?”

“It’s nothing like what you promised.” Kara’s heart sinks. “But it’s better. Well done, Keira.” If Kara were a less practical person, she might swear that she sees the ghost of a smile hover over Cat Grant’s mouth. “A veritable treatise on the nature of the campus justice system and what might inspire student vigilantism of the sort we’ve been recently seeing. Much more interesting than the dime-store John Grisham dreck you proposed initially.”

In a time where Kara has had so few wins, her words feel enormous. Days spent sleeping in Alex’s bed, commuting to school, enduring Maggie’s pitying looks, resisting the almost painful urge to text Lena. She’d been dragged back to where she was when she started the semester, isolated and looking for one bright spot in a world that sometimes felt like it was mostly full of bad things.

“Does this mean--”

  
“You can have the spot.” Cat has returned her attention completely to her laptop, seemingly having lost interest in what Kara has to say. “It’s not glamorous, mind you. Mostly writing for the crime blotter. But you’ll have your own desk.”

A bespeckled beat writer shows her to her future desk, a little thing about as far away from the office’s only wall of windows as a person could get. Trying not to think about the one person she wants to tell most in the world, Kara sneaks a picture of it and sends it to her group chat with Alex and Eliza accompanied by an extreme amount of exclamation points. Then she takes a pen from her knapsack and leaves it on top to mark her space.  
___

Saying that it’s the worst spring break of her life would be a vast understatement, this including the week in high school that nobody in her junior class invited her on their trip to Six Flags. It’s like all the energy Kara had been using to keep up her facade of being a productive student fades as soon as Alex’s car cruises into the driveway of their family home. Having got her spot on the paper, having aced her finals, having solved her mystery, having lost Lena, she wonders what’s left to occupy her energy. It’s such a profound listlessness that the heaviness of it takes her breath away.

Alex only stays for the first weekend before she returns to work, leaving Kara and Eliza to their devices in the house. Kara knows that Eliza knows that something is wrong and is either following some kind of maternal instinct not to say anything or waiting for Kara to come to her. Kara has suspected that Alex filled Eliza in on at least some of it--her sister has a big mouth--but she doesn’t know how much she knows and how many gaps she has in the story.

Kara’s habit of social media stalking doesn’t help at all. She scrolls through Lena’s Instagram until she’s just staring at pictures that she’s already seen, eyes wet. Although Kara doesn’t dare click on her story, Albie and Maeve fill her in on behind-the-scenes action through their group chat. Maybe it’s better to  
have the real story instead of whatever carefully curated thing Lena would put up, anyway.

Albie [5:22] she misses u  
Maeve [5:23] yea we can’t get that bitch to shut up about you lmfao

It leads them into a frustrating dance. Kara sleeps in until noon and scarcely leaves the house, although Eliza seems to have an endless fountain of errands for her to run that involve her being in the outside world for an extended period of time (trips to the grocery store, dropping something off at a friend’s house, picking things up, running Jeremiah’s old car a couple times around the block to keep it functioning). If she can see the way that heartbreak ebbs away at Kara, she bears it quietly and efficiently. So when she summons Kara downstairs to help her do the dishes, she doesn’t think much of it. She finds Eliza standing at the sink and slips in easily, grabbing a dish towel and drying a plate.

“You smell like cigarettes. Have you been smoking?” Kara is quiet. “The girl you were with, did she smoke?”

“I can’t believe Alex told you that.” She can. She just needs something to say.

“Would you have, if she hadn’t?” Kara has no answer for that. “You’ve been so distant from me for the past few weeks. You barely even told me about your spot on the paper.” Kara sets her dried plate down in the rack with a huff and doesn’t look at Eliza. Her disappointed energy is enough without the visual accompaniment. “I know I’m not your mother, Kara. I would never try to replace your parents. But I love you.”

“I love you too.” On instinct, Kara reaches out and takes Eliza’s hand where it rests on the edge of the sink. She squeezes it and warms and the answering clench. “She did smoke, but not anymore.”

“Have you thought about talking to her?”

“I have. I’ve tried, I mean. I’m just worried--I know it’s not healthy to try and fix people, you know? Even though you might love them.”

“Well, fixing is one thing.” Eliza responds. “But when you really love somebody you can lift each other up. That’s a whole other animal.”

Kara blinks at her reflection in the shine of a white plate, then she moves her hand and keeps drying.  
___

The last thing Kara expects to hear playing outside of her window at 10 PM on the Friday before spring break ends is R. Kelly’s Bump N Grind. It’s so ludicrous that she doesn’t react for a few minutes for fear that she might be hallucinating. Then pebbles start hitting the glass of her window pane and she’s forced to leave her spot at her desk and throw open the curtains, peering out into the dark yard below her.

To the infinite delight of her heart, it’s Lena. More accurately, it’s Lena in a leather jacket with a bluetooth boombox speaker held aloft over her head, blasting music. A dog is barking somewhere in the distance. “Open up.” She calls. “It took me like 6 hours to get this thing connected to my phone.”

Kara’s hands are trembling and eager when she lifts her window, sticking her head out to get a better look down. “What are you doing here?”

“I want to apologize and also acknowledge your apology.”

“Aren’t you supposed to have a boombox?”

“This was all they were selling at the airport.”

Kara slams the window shut and nearly runs out of her room, padding down the stairs and out the front door. It’s cold for her to be wearing shorts and a t-shirt with no shoes. She clambors across the lawn anyway, to the side of her house where Lena is standing and waiting for her. “R Kelly, huh?”

“It reminds me of that first party I took you to.” The dog is still barking. Lena looks radiant half-embraced by the dark. “I’m sorry for not being willing to try. I was freaked out. If you asked me about it now, I’d have a different answer.”

“I’m sorry for calling you a mess.” Kara crosses her arms, takes a wavering step closer to Lena. “That wasn’t fair, when I’m also a mess. What do you mean that you’d have a different answer?”

Lena reaches out to her. “I just would. It wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be different.”

Not perfect, but different. Kara steps into her arms and lets herself be held.  
___

Kara sometimes feels like her life is a movie that she’s watching from outside her body. Here is Lena’s rental car, a 4-door hatchback, going 5 miles above the speed limit down a wooded highway. From this perspective she can see the love plain on her own face when she reaches out and cups the back of Lena’s neck. She can see Lena’s own smile, small and hopeful, and she can see the trees and everything beyond the trees as they push forward.

With no particular agenda, they stop for tacos, then at a store that sells exclusively Bigfoot memorabilia. In Kara’s movie, the camera will linger on Lena’s body when she steps out onto the gravel parking lot to stretch, her shirt lifting to expose her midsection. The sun loves her; the audience can tell by the flare on the camera, the way it kisses her skin. There’s music on the radio, there’s laughter when they turn down a side road to find a secluded place to park the car.

There’s still so much unknown, so many possibilities when they guide their bodies to the backseat and begin to undress. It’s as vast as the stars over Yosemite, big as the woods around them, everything is possible and nothing in the world is predestined for them. Lena removes her bra and she’s as naked and holy as Kara has ever seen another person. Already bereft of her shirt, Kara emits a sigh when Lena skims her palm up the scarred skin of her right arm. She can’t feel it there but she wants it so badly that she can imagine it.

“Are you ready?” Lena asks in a voice so quiet the camera almost won’t pick it up. Kara laughs at the implication that she’s ever not been. Then she opens her eyes, tilts them to look out the window at the trees behind them and tries her best to capture this moment, to preserve it in her mind forever. She wants the way Lena is looking at her now to be her constant for as long as she lives. That done, she smiles.

“I’m ready.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that’s all, folks. hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr @seabiscuits-us


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